Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Syt]

The Russian girl has now suggested that we have drinks outdoors to not bow to fascism (sic). It's been raining all week. 

Sorry, I don't want to give you the play-by-play, I'm just having a good laugh 

With our Christmas dinner canceled due to lockdown, one colleague (vaccinated) suggested doing a joint walk, since those are allowed. One of our new colleagues (vaccination unknown) was eager to join, but it gained no traction beyond those two. Management said instead they hope there'll be time for at least an informal get-together if the lockdown lifts on the currently planned date.

[Admiral Yi]

Tell her you'd love to but your microchip won't let you.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting thread from John Burn-Murdoch on something that I've been wondering about: why the UK isn't seeing a spike like other bits of Western Europe. Basically we're at a higher plateau than most of Western Europe, it goes up and down but we basically bobble about that plateau and have since July, while in other bits of Western Europe it is spiking. See here:


Part of it seems to be higher infection levels over summer - which came with a death toll of 15,000 (so we had more deaths in that period than most of Western Europe). The combination of infections and vaccines means there are fewer susceptible elderly people:



But it also looks like boosters are crucial in terms of cases and admissions:



The booster programme seems to be accelerating now which is good news, but I think across Europe it's the essential thing now. I get the ethical issues but boosters are really important given waning efficiency and I am annoyed (it's another example of every country experiencing the pandemic alone) that no-one seems to have prepared in the five months since the first Israeli data about waning efficiency came out.

But boosters only help people who've already been vaccinated. So if you have a higher number of people who've been unvaccinated then boosters will help, but you don't need many susceptible, unvaccinated older or vulnerable people to have a lot of admissions and deaths. So he uses the example of Austria which has had the most successful booster campaign in Europe, but starts with a higher level of unvaccinated (this also shows the absolute success of Macron's vaccine pass which we should all be looking at) - it looks like recent shifts are getting people to be vaccinated which is good:


But if you add in the US to that chart, they could have a very bad winter indeed:


Icidentally he mentions that we should probably stop referring to it as a booster shot, it's more like a third dose. It seems to provide a higher level of protection than the second dose etc - it is working better than just topping up your immunity. But if countries haven't started those campaigns - I think the Netherlands hasn't started yet - then even a small fraction of unvaccinated elderly people, combined with waning immunity can be really bad. So - and it feels crazy still saying this almost a year into the vaccine campaign is to get people vaccinated in the first place and I think in Europe we should all be looking at France where they overcame a relatively high level of vaccine hesitancy through their vaccine passport and who should (if they roll out a third dose well) have a relatively good winter.

[Tamas]

Well, I didn't mess up my second test and it came back negative. Which is great, but my temperature continues to be stuck above 37C, and have developed quite a headache by this morning, and my coughing seems to be slowly picking up.

I have a company event tomorrow I am supposed to attend which will require a 2 hours train ride. I don't want to be the guy bailing on it due to some dubious excuses, yet it seems that would be the prudent thing to do pandemic-wise.

[HVC]

The Russian girl has now suggested that we have drinks outdoors to not bow to fascism (sic). It's been raining all week. 

Sorry, I don't want to give you the play-by-play, I'm just having a good laugh 

Is she pretty enough to be this crazy?

[mongers]

Well, I didn't mess up my second test and it came back negative. Which is great, but my temperature continues to be stuck above 37C, and have developed quite a headache by this morning, and my coughing seems to be slowly picking up.

I have a company event tomorrow I am supposed to attend which will require a 2 hours train ride. I don't want to be the guy bailing on it due to some dubious excuses, yet it seems that would be the prudent thing to do pandemic-wise.

Tamas, I know you'll do your civic duty. 

[celedhring]

The Russian girl has now suggested that we have drinks outdoors to not bow to fascism (sic). It's been raining all week. 

Sorry, I don't want to give you the play-by-play, I'm just having a good laugh 

Is she pretty enough to be this crazy?

She's very hot.

This place employs quite a few Russians (the uni has lots of ties with Russian academia), the women are all insanely hot. It's silly.

[Josquius]

Wow those old Romanians. All of them are in hospital.

[The Larch]

The Russian girl has now suggested that we have drinks outdoors to not bow to fascism (sic). It's been raining all week. 

Sorry, I don't want to give you the play-by-play, I'm just having a good laugh 

Is she pretty enough to be this crazy?

She's very hot.

This place employs quite a few Russians (the uni has lots of ties with Russian academia), the women are all insanely hot. It's silly.

Are they all similarly crazy?

[DGuller]

Am I reading the chart right, has pretty much everyone in Romania been infected?  Seems off to me.

[celedhring]

The Russian girl has now suggested that we have drinks outdoors to not bow to fascism (sic). It's been raining all week. 

Sorry, I don't want to give you the play-by-play, I'm just having a good laugh 

Is she pretty enough to be this crazy?

She's very hot.

This place employs quite a few Russians (the uni has lots of ties with Russian academia), the women are all insanely hot. It's silly.

Are they all similarly crazy?

Wouldn't know, I only interact with this one regularly.

[Agelastus]

Well, I didn't mess up my second test and it came back negative. Which is great, but my temperature continues to be stuck above 37C, and have developed quite a headache by this morning, and my coughing seems to be slowly picking up.

I have a company event tomorrow I am supposed to attend which will require a 2 hours train ride. I don't want to be the guy bailing on it due to some dubious excuses, yet it seems that would be the prudent thing to do pandemic-wise.

Lateral Flow tests are not 100% reliable; wasn't it Sajid Javid in the government who passed one, still felt like shit so took a PCR test that showed he had COVID? Can you book a PCR test locally?

[Not that the result will get to you in time for tomorrow, unfortunately.]

[The Larch]

The Russian girl has now suggested that we have drinks outdoors to not bow to fascism (sic). It's been raining all week. 

Sorry, I don't want to give you the play-by-play, I'm just having a good laugh 

Is she pretty enough to be this crazy?

She's very hot.

This place employs quite a few Russians (the uni has lots of ties with Russian academia), the women are all insanely hot. It's silly.

Are they all similarly crazy?

Wouldn't know, I only interact with this one regularly.

You should explore and report back.

[HVC]

The Russian girl has now suggested that we have drinks outdoors to not bow to fascism (sic). It's been raining all week. 

Sorry, I don't want to give you the play-by-play, I'm just having a good laugh 

Is she pretty enough to be this crazy?

She's very hot.

This place employs quite a few Russians (the uni has lots of ties with Russian academia), the women are all insanely hot. It's silly.

Then i forgive her

[Tamas]

Well, I didn't mess up my second test and it came back negative. Which is great, but my temperature continues to be stuck above 37C, and have developed quite a headache by this morning, and my coughing seems to be slowly picking up.

I have a company event tomorrow I am supposed to attend which will require a 2 hours train ride. I don't want to be the guy bailing on it due to some dubious excuses, yet it seems that would be the prudent thing to do pandemic-wise.

Lateral Flow tests are not 100% reliable; wasn't it Sajid Javid in the government who passed one, still felt like shit so took a PCR test that showed he had COVID? Can you book a PCR test locally?

[Not that the result will get to you in time for tomorrow, unfortunately.]

Yeah friend of mine in Hungary encountered this very recently. Half of his family caught it, he didn't, for a while. After a few days of noticing symptoms he did a lateral flow test, came back negative. Two days later he repeated, was positive.

To be honest I am not keen on paying for yet another PCR test. I will pick up free lateral flow tests and re-test myself tomorrow morning. And probably just not go regardless.