No change in measures that were implemented on January 5th (i.e. shift to National lockdown from regional lockdowns). Think I gave a summary of them a while ago and they are readily available online.
Boris advising that evidence suggests that the new variant has an increased mortality rate (as well as being more virulent)
Thatās not great.
Incredibly England and Scotland restrictions arenāt as harsh as Victoria had.
Theyāve also stated that the vaccine likely to have the same effectiveness against the āUKā variant and the āOriginalā variant. Not enough information yet to assess the Brazilian and South African variants.
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Uh oh
āBritish scientists are discovering āemerging evidenceā that the new and more transmissible mutant coronavirus strain running rampant across the country might be 30 per cent more deadly.
In a downbeat press conference, chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance also warned they were āconcernedā existing vaccines might not work against other variants emerging in South Africa and Brazil.ā
Itās the nature of infectious agents that they can evolve and evade and become more effective. A shift for increased infectivity towards the younger age groups is really going to change things a lot.
Weāre only 12 months into this pandemic and thereās a long way to go.
Melbourne adding another 11 hotels to their HQ program. With the massive downturn in tourism hotels are champing at the bit to join the program
And the government (then in turn, us) pay for it. Donāt know where all this money is coming from, we will be in a huge amount of pain in a couple fo years time when most of the world is bankrupt
You pay for your own quarantine.
Agree.
Here is the actual figures.
āIf you took a man in their 60s, the average risk is that for every 1000 people who got infected roughly 10 would be expected to unfortunately die with the virus,ā Vallance said. āWith the new variant, for 1000 people infected roughly 13 or 14 people might be expected to die.
I just hope it doesnāt stretch our resources to breaking point.
A bit more detail on the variant of concern within this document:
Iām no economist but they always claim that migration is good for the economy, so with the huge drop in migration last year and this year, net gains from international returnees who would likely have good support networks and be less drain on services, and who contribute a significant amount to their own quarantine are likely to be a benefit to the economy.
You can argue they pose a risk, lām not sure you can argue they are significantly affecting the economy.
Agreed. Primary aim of vaccine is to reduce the number of deaths and reduce the number of patients who require hospitalisation.
Data relating to onward transmission in vaccinated patients (and other trends) will emerge during what is called Post Marketing Surveillance or Phase IV of the clinical trial for each vaccine and in each jurisdiction.
It was great to hear from Fauci on the UK variant and how itās more virilant.
He said something along the lines of āthe virus binds to the receptors easierā which makes it more virilant and gives the virus a greater chance to bind enough viral to increase the chances of getting the heavy version of the virus. He mentioned that tested in a test tube, then the spike in cases prove that this is the cases.
He mentioned masks have no more or less effectiveness against this strain.
Makes sense. The issue with the virus is how it binds to surfaces. Not necessarily the distance away you need to be from it, etc. So stopping it from getting into the nasal passage / mouth is the same as the previous virus.
UK numbers certainly falling. A peak of 68 thousand per day down to 38k per day. Moving in the right direction, at least.
Reloās have said that the UK is seriously looking at introducing 14 day hotel quarantine for all incoming passengers including residents for the next 3-6 months. After that residents returning would be offered home isolation with ankle bracelets. In theory the UK should be the easiest place in Europe to defend but they have botched it badly
Itās been a debacle from day 1.
They also have massive flood problems in parts of the UK at the moment, and according to my brother in law a lot of evacuated residents are sheltering en masse in improvised accomodations, which isnāt going to help the Covid situation.