How many have been vaccinated so far?

[Steve vRS]

Vasco said:

Steve vRS said:

Vasco said:

What else should the government be doing ?

Accepting that this is now an endemic virus, that the vulnerable are vaccinated, that so far no variants have evaded the vaccine and let everyone get on with their lives to generate wealth to pay taxes to pay for this st storm we have been through for the last 15 months.

I thought that was precisely what the government was doing - presumably just not as quickly as you like.

In a nutshell.

[rix]

Had my second jab cancelled and invited to attend a walk in apt over a series of available dates. It states I'm to leave a min of 8 weeks after first jab (AZ) but first available date is within approx 7 weeks of my first. Happy to wait until after the 8 week threshold but just wondered if anyone else has defied advice and taken their 2nd sooner?

[Muddle238]

Vasco said:

KTF said:

If the government does not do something soon there will be no airline industry left by next year. Many are already on their knees and were banking on a good summer to see them through the winter. With that looking unlikely, its only a matter of time before they start going under with the economic consequences that brings.

What else should the government be doing ?

Well for a start, they should be reviewing the green list far more often than once every three weeks. It should be more like once every three days. The lists should also be more stable, a slight fluctuation or regional rise in cases in one country shouldn’t result in a knee jerk reaction from our govt, downgrading it back to amber.

Regionalism should also play a part in destinations, for example I recall last year a rise in cases in Barcelona; the governments response? Quarantine required and FCO advising against non essential travel for the entire of mainland Spain, the Balearics and the Canary Islands… it took months for the UK govt to recognise the Spanish islands as a separate entity to mainland Spain; months of lost revenue for airlines, then tragically as soon as they did start treating the Canaries separately for instance, a rise in cases on the islands had them banned again. This ridiculous yo-yo effect needlessly lost airlines crucial revenue, all because the UK govt was not sitting down and carefully thinking about their actions. They were pure, shooting from the hip, knee jerk reactions.

It saddens me to still see our government behaving in the same manner, one year on. We have a cracking vaccination rollout but somehow we’re more restricted this summer than last summer, despite the vaccine. The govt states it wants to “protect the vaccine rollout”, well I’m no vaccine expert but surely the folks who are jabbed or double jabbed are medically protected as best as they can be, political protections are no longer necessary? What boils my blood is Matt Hancock coming out with some sweaty statement about how being cautious is the “right thing to do”, when in reality being as overly cautious as they are is really destroying the airline industry, because we simply cannot operate. The best support we can have is to be able to just operate in some capacity, even if reduced.

I’m supposedly an airline captain, although I’ve hardly flown in recent months. If Matt Hancock ever boarded my aircraft, I would have him offloaded for “endangering an aircraft”, or more accurately, endangering the airlines.

[Vanden Saab]

amgmcqueen said:

How are all you double jabbers enjoying your new found freedoms....?

No difference here, although I went to look at a job earlier and the customer asked if I wanted her to wear a mask...God no I have had my jabs I said So have I she replied, come on in...

[dmahon]

Vasco said:

I thought that was precisely what the government was doing - presumably just not as quickly as you like.

What’s the green list today? The falklands and the outer Hebrides?

Even if you are at effectively zero risk even before you were double vaccinated and then travelling to a country with less Covid than the u k and tested within an inch of your life?

Believe me, the government could be doing a lot more for our travel and airline industries.

[Vanden Saab]

bodhi said:

isaldiri said:

So....got a call to hurry up second jabs earlier today as according to the nhs chap it's now 4 week interval.

Which is all rather confusing given the govt and associated advisors spent months since the start of the year saying how smart they were to get better immune response with the longer dosing interval which presumably doesn't matter now......

In fairness was the 12 week dose interval leading to higher efficacy not primarily aimed at the AZ vaccine, which from what I can tell is a "slow burner" and can take some time to do it's stuff? 4 weeks sounds more in line with the recommendations for the mRNA vaccines.

As you know I'm on "Team Monkey Snot", my 2nd jab is still booked in for 12 weeks after the first in August, and haven't been asked to change just yet. I do need to call them up, as my 2nd jab is 20 miles away and not sure if I fancy driving that far after how spaced I felt after jab 1.

I think it is more to do with how few second doses we need to give at the 12 week interval, In a couple of days the total of second doses needed will drop to about 100,000 a day and now we are not giving AZ to younger people we can bring the second doses forward as we have a supply of 2 million a week and will only have 700,000 people who need it if we stick to 12 week gap. We should be able to export AZ to poorer countries in around a month or two.

[Northernboy]

dmahon said:

What’s the green list today? The falklands and the outer Hebrides?

Even if you are at effectively zero risk even before you were double vaccinated and then travelling to a country with less Covid than the u k and tested within an inch of your life?

Believe me, the government could be doing a lot more for our travel and airline industries.

The thing is, I don’t believe you. Do you have any expertise in virology, immunology or statistics that mean that what you say should be viewed as gospel?

Where is this “believe me” coming from? What’s your insight, how can anyone know whether it’s uninformed speculation or not?

To put it simply, “believe me” implies actual expertise, what is yours?

[pquinn]

Northernboy said:

The thing is, I don’t believe you. Do you have any expertise in virology, immunology or statistics that mean that what you say should be viewed as gospel?

Where is this “believe me” coming from? What’s your insight, how can anyone know whether it’s uninformed speculation or not?

To put it simply, “believe me” implies actual expertise, what is yours?

Are you some sort of fruitloop? Did you even read what you were replying to before you started your mad appeal to authority? Is it some sort of cheat sheet copypasta?

What the fk does 'expertise in virology, immunology or statistics' have to do with suggesting the government could do more for our travel and airline industries?


It's sickening to see people jumping up and trying to deny even the basics of discussion with some claim that only the special high priest of a random subject may comment when it isn't even fking relevant.



In other actual vaccination news it seems that between the various other nonsense we're seeing discrimination kick in based on what type of vaccine you've had - say for example AZ not being treated as 'vaccinated' by people in the US because they never approved it there so it doesn't count. Story covered by the Telegraph and probably elsewhere.

What a load of bks that is...

[dmahon]

Northernboy said:

The thing is, I don’t believe you. Do you have any expertise in virology, immunology or statistics that mean that what you say should be viewed as gospel?

Where is this “believe me” coming from? What’s your insight, how can anyone know whether it’s uninformed speculation or not?

To put it simply, “believe me” implies actual expertise, what is yours?

I have zero expertise in virology and immunology and quite a lot in statistics fwiw but I’m not sure how it’s relevant.

If you are:

- Young and at minimal risk from Covid
- Double vaccinated
- Travelling to a country with less incidence than us
- Live in the UK, a country where everyone vulnerable is vaxxed
- PCR tested 4 times as part of the travel
- Forced to quarantine

Almost anyone can see that is incredibly risk averse response with implications for millions of jobs, £multi billion industries, the wider economy, people’s mental health etc

Do you really disagree some of that could be relaxed if it meant saving a huge strategic industry and thousands of jobs?

If you think the above is a proportionate response purely because an expert in virology says so, I guess we agree to disagree. I personally see huge tradeoffs for extremely minimal risk, but I guess that’s where I differ from many people in this debate since day one.

Edited by dmahon on Friday 18th June 04:56

[Vasco]

Muddle238 said:

Vasco said:

KTF said:

If the government does not do something soon there will be no airline industry left by next year. Many are already on their knees and were banking on a good summer to see them through the winter. With that looking unlikely, its only a matter of time before they start going under with the economic consequences that brings.

What else should the government be doing ?

Well for a start, they should be reviewing the green list far more often than once every three weeks. It should be more like once every three days. The lists should also be more stable, a slight fluctuation or regional rise in cases in one country shouldn’t result in a knee jerk reaction from our govt, downgrading it back to amber.

Regionalism should also play a part in destinations, for example I recall last year a rise in cases in Barcelona; the governments response? Quarantine required and FCO advising against non essential travel for the entire of mainland Spain, the Balearics and the Canary Islands… it took months for the UK govt to recognise the Spanish islands as a separate entity to mainland Spain; months of lost revenue for airlines, then tragically as soon as they did start treating the Canaries separately for instance, a rise in cases on the islands had them banned again. This ridiculous yo-yo effect needlessly lost airlines crucial revenue, all because the UK govt was not sitting down and carefully thinking about their actions. They were pure, shooting from the hip, knee jerk reactions.

It saddens me to still see our government behaving in the same manner, one year on. We have a cracking vaccination rollout but somehow we’re more restricted this summer than last summer, despite the vaccine. The govt states it wants to “protect the vaccine rollout”, well I’m no vaccine expert but surely the folks who are jabbed or double jabbed are medically protected as best as they can be, political protections are no longer necessary? What boils my blood is Matt Hancock coming out with some sweaty statement about how being cautious is the “right thing to do”, when in reality being as overly cautious as they are is really destroying the airline industry, because we simply cannot operate. The best support we can have is to be able to just operate in some capacity, even if reduced.

I’m supposedly an airline captain, although I’ve hardly flown in recent months. If Matt Hancock ever boarded my aircraft, I would have him offloaded for “endangering an aircraft”, or more accurately, endangering the airlines.

Review it every 3 days. Really......??

Surely, in practice it is being reviewed continually - just *formally* reviewed at 3 week intervals.
Everyone in the travel industry must be very frustrated at the slow return to normal but I think most of the UK population understands the need for ongoing caution.

[Muddle238]

Vasco said:

Review it every 3 days. Really......??

Surely, in practice it is being reviewed continually - just *formally* reviewed at 3 week intervals.
Everyone in the travel industry must be very frustrated at the slow return to normal but I think most of the UK population understands the need for ongoing caution.

This is the problem, it’s not a slow return to normal, it’s utterly stationary. Yes, caution is needed, but the need for caution does not necessitate practically zero ability to travel, if you have the proper tools and precautions in place.

The govt has had over a year to implement these tools, yet here we are with a majority of those eligible in the UK having had both jabs, the airline industry on its knees and yet the government repeatedly kicks the can down the road while citing the next review date. As airline bosses are saying, the govt isn’t even playing by their own rule book; if they were, there are countries which currently meet the govt criteria for the green list, these countries would actually be green instead of amber.

So what are these tools? Well, I suspect the airline industry collectively is better placed to advise the government on the most appropriate way to move forward, reopening international air travel where possible in a safe and cautious manner, as opposed to government ministers/politicians deciding on their behalf from Whitehall and pulling the strings. With respect to Grant Shapps, I don’t think he has half a clue about how the airline industry operates, he’s a career politician without any industry experience, so why on Earth is he calling the shots on a subject he’s not best placed to manage?

These tools, for a start, simplify the traffic light system; just either red or green. Red = FCO advises against non essential travel, places such as India when experiencing big waves. Green = FCO advises non essential travel is possible, provided passengers are either vaccinated or can show proof of having antibodies from an infection within the past 6 months (I believe this is the European approach). On top of that, a test required before departure and upon return, positive before travel = cannot travel, positive upon return = quarantine, if negative then no quarantine required.

[Dog Star]

I think we are already being prepped for being locked down for winter come Autumn ….



This madness has to stop.

[vaud]

Dog Star said:

This madness has to stop.

I think we will have some winter controls (masks, limits for crowded events), but not a full lockdown.

What is your magic solution?

[Dog Star]

vaud said:

I think we will have some winter controls (masks, limits for crowded events), but not a full lockdown.

What is your magic solution?

Just stop this crap totally.

How many lives could be saved, nhs stress etc if they banned smoking overnight?

Diminishing returns. Im not some anti vax tinfoil hatter, but I have 100% had it with this now. By autumn everyone will have been offered a vaccine. I don’t owe any duty of care to those that have refused one - fk ‘em.

The vulnerable who cannot have one - should we really be locking down the 99.9% of the rest of us?

This has gone far enough - we are destroying entire sectors of our economy.

[Northernboy]

vaud said:

I think we will have some winter controls (masks, limits for crowded events), but not a full lockdown.

What is your magic solution?

Vaccinations, plus the most vulnerable being reminded to take some extra care when out and about.

[djc206]

Northernboy said:

Vaccinations, plus the most vulnerable being reminded to take some extra care when out and about.

And if absolutely necessary those identified as extremely vulnerable being paid and supported in every way necessary to shield.

[Maximus_Meridius101]

Northernboy said:

Vaccinations, plus the most vulnerable being reminded to take some extra care when out and about.

The fact there are so many infections, tells a tale, “blame it all on the young / unvaccinated lot” nope, that’s bks, the U.K. has an ageing population, there are more ( apparently) now fully immune people than not. So, reading between the lines, the vaccines aren’t doing quite as well as the experts had hoped. They ( at least ) don’t appear to be ‘sanitising’. All they really need to do is keep enough people out of hospital, to avoid the overload that is part one of the big problem. News coming from ( Oldham in particular) is that they aren’t doing. At least one critical care / I.T.U. In Oldham is at capacity, and using surrounding hospitals for assistance. Something is very wrong.

[Maximus_Meridius101]

djc206 said:

And if absolutely necessary those identified as extremely vulnerable being paid and supported in every way necessary to shield.

If the vaccines were doing the job the experts hoped they would, there would be no need to.

[djc206]

Maximus_Meridius101 said:

The fact there are so many infections, tells a tale, “blame it all on the young / unvaccinated lot” nope, that’s bks, the U.K. has an ageing population, there are more ( apparently) now fully immune people than not. So, reading between the lines, the vaccines aren’t doing quite as well as the experts had hoped. They ( at least ) don’t appear to be ‘sanitising’. All they really need to do is keep enough people out of hospital, to avoid the overload that is part one of the big problem. News coming from ( Oldham in particular) is that they aren’t doing. At least one critical care / I.T.U. In Oldham is at capacity, and using surrounding hospitals for assistance. Something is very wrong.

A quick Google suggests Oldham is part of the Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust? They have 16 covid patients, 7 ventilated. Must be a small ITU, if those numbers are correct a nasty RTC could see them at capacity.

[djc206]

Maximus_Meridius101 said:

If the vaccines were doing the job the experts hoped they would, there would be no need to.

I disagree. Some people cannot be vaccinated, others are extremely vulnerable and even a mild dose of something like the Rona would finish them off. If they require extra protection then we should offer it.