We already loosened restrictions.
People are fed up...and there are elections later this year, that'll help fasten things up
People are fed up...and there are elections later this year, that'll help fasten things up
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Coronavirus (COVID-19 Outbreak) (48 Viewers)
- Thread starter Bjerknes
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Latest update in a long line of amusing oddities from good old, reliable Belgium.
Last june, the government provided a mask for each citizen. Free of charge, obviously. You just had to go to you local pharmacy to get one (or more). I'd say that's a nice gesture.
At the time however, there was already some criticism because it looked like a shady deal. It cost a few dozen million, but the supplier of the masks was some unknown foreign company with no expertise whatsoever.
Rumor had it, local companies could not bid on the contract: they could not enter their bid in time, since the contract with that random company had already been signed before the tender had been released. And there's definitely some truth to that rumour, seeing how I personally know someone who works for a company specialised in breathing protection & other types of PPE. His company would have entered a proposal (for a much lower budget even) for which my friend would have been responsible, but they couldn't.
All because of the excuse that things had to happen "quickly". Yep, quickly, as in more than 3 months after the start of this thing.
Cut to 8 months later.
Our government, who provided us with these masks, now urges people NOT to wear them. They have already been banned in numerous places by now as well.
Because, you know, we're not convinced that the material that was used to make them is safe. These masks might actually be dangerous, we're not sure. We'll look into that. Yes, you read that correctly, we'll look into that after providing them to people. Because quality control beforehand is just such a silly notion.
Ffs, if I something like this happened on a tv show, I'd criticize it for being way too far fetched.
Last june, the government provided a mask for each citizen. Free of charge, obviously. You just had to go to you local pharmacy to get one (or more). I'd say that's a nice gesture.
At the time however, there was already some criticism because it looked like a shady deal. It cost a few dozen million, but the supplier of the masks was some unknown foreign company with no expertise whatsoever.
Rumor had it, local companies could not bid on the contract: they could not enter their bid in time, since the contract with that random company had already been signed before the tender had been released. And there's definitely some truth to that rumour, seeing how I personally know someone who works for a company specialised in breathing protection & other types of PPE. His company would have entered a proposal (for a much lower budget even) for which my friend would have been responsible, but they couldn't.
All because of the excuse that things had to happen "quickly". Yep, quickly, as in more than 3 months after the start of this thing.
Cut to 8 months later.
Our government, who provided us with these masks, now urges people NOT to wear them. They have already been banned in numerous places by now as well.
Because, you know, we're not convinced that the material that was used to make them is safe. These masks might actually be dangerous, we're not sure. We'll look into that. Yes, you read that correctly, we'll look into that after providing them to people. Because quality control beforehand is just such a silly notion.
Ffs, if I something like this happened on a tv show, I'd criticize it for being way too far fetched.
So, try to beat this
Of course, I come from more shit country, but nonethelessHere in FBiH we are introducing stronger measures, more control over everything, while in RS they are loosening everything. So if you are in Sarajevo, in one street you have to wear a mask, while in the street next to, you don't have
Yikes! At this point it seems like the traditional (Chinese) strain of Coronavirus isn't even the biggest issue anymore considering the vaccines are developed and effective. The new issue will be these new strains coming over from SA, Britain and Brazil. Although the cases of these new mutations aren't much in numbers, it seems like they are all highly contagious and likely to spread through the community. Even if we all have 70% of our population vaccinated in England/NL with Pfizer and Astrazeneca, It'll be a 'locked' society without free travel if these new variants can't be controlled upon with returning people from foreign countries I reckon.
Which means for me I've come to a point to accept this new lung virus will be with us for some time. I just read an article this weekend from our health minister saying it's likely we have to live with the virus for the rest of our lives.
Which means for me I've come to a point to accept this new lung virus will be with us for some time. I just read an article this weekend from our health minister saying it's likely we have to live with the virus for the rest of our lives.
Basically the current Pfizer/Moderna/AZ/Johnson vaccines seem to do a good job in order to prevent hospitalizations
These vaccines offer not.a lot protection against the British, SU or Brazilian mutant
We can solve the Chinese virus with these vaccines in the West.
But it'll mean we're prone to a new pandemic of a new Corona strain
These vaccines offer not.a lot protection against the British, SU or Brazilian mutant
We can solve the Chinese virus with these vaccines in the West.
But it'll mean we're prone to a new pandemic of a new Corona strain
At the moment the current vaccines still do provide at least some measure of protection against known variants from what I understand. But even so, Moderna and Pfizer are testing variant-specific booster shots at the moment, not that I'm even close to an expert but I see no reason as to why those would not be effective if the originals were.
So true. So much fear-mongering garbage from the world media about these variants. Vested interests from these vultures to sell papers and to get more clicks online.
Sure, there will be mutations causing new variants for some time yet. But you don’t think all of these vaccine makers won’t develop new boosters annually to combat them? We do this every single year with the flu shot, which is usually only 40-50% effective at stopping the disease, and life goes on as it should. There is literally thousands of viruses out there that we are exposed to every year that can you make you seriously ill or kill you. There is always a risk involved in living life.
Anyway, this pandemic (like most before them) will end socially way quickly than it will end medically. Sooner or later, when most of the world is vaccinated or have already gained a measure of immunity after being infected with the virus/disease, the world will just open up and those who wish to stay home and live in fear will do so and those that want to get on with their lives (the vast majority) will do so. IMO by the end of this year, the world will resemble how it looked in 2019.
Sure, there will be mutations causing new variants for some time yet. But you don’t think all of these vaccine makers won’t develop new boosters annually to combat them? We do this every single year with the flu shot, which is usually only 40-50% effective at stopping the disease, and life goes on as it should. There is literally thousands of viruses out there that we are exposed to every year that can you make you seriously ill or kill you. There is always a risk involved in living life.
Anyway, this pandemic (like most before them) will end socially way quickly than it will end medically. Sooner or later, when most of the world is vaccinated or have already gained a measure of immunity after being infected with the virus/disease, the world will just open up and those who wish to stay home and live in fear will do so and those that want to get on with their lives (the vast majority) will do so. IMO by the end of this year, the world will resemble how it looked in 2019.
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They took some polls and apparently people in BC, my province, are the worst for following Covid restrictions. 34% follow them fully. Funniest part is that we’ve had the mellowest restrictions in the country for most of the pandemic. Nothing like the lockdowns in other provinces, and have still had a pretty mellow pandemic. The pandemic is over. As soon as they started vaccinating it was over. They were always gonna get through those most at risk quickly. Given the number of people in hard hit places who got it, and the vaccinations starting, seems absurd to keep any restrictions outside mask-wearing at this point.
You make some good points but I wouldn’t really call the pandemic over at this point in time. As long as we have unvaccinated people moving from one region to another (including from underdeveloped countries), the threat of another outbreak persists. The mutant ninja strains are a big concern.
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I know I'm kind of contradicting my own statement above about underdeveloped countries, but it is fascinating that a sizable majority of these countries have fared better than "first world countries" as far as COVID-19 is concerned.
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I know I'm kind of contradicting my own statement above about underdeveloped countries, but it is fascinating that a sizable majority of these countries have fared better than "first world countries" as far as COVID-19 is concerned.
The way they record (or simply don't record) cases in these countries is the main difference. But also it is not linear across countries based on their GDP, there are other factors that come into play.
Take the president of Tanzania, he just decided one day that the virus didn't exist. He recommended prayer and herbal remedies and for months they put it down to pneumonia. But recently high profile politicians have been dying and so, surprisingly, they have now started taking measures in the last few days. Currently their hospitals are overflowing with patients.
Personally I don't trust figures in several developing or even some notable first world countries, they are ripe with corruption and are modern dictatorships, especially in Africa and Asia. In those cases you will not see the supreme ruler or monarch admit to struggling with a pandemic.
The sad fact is also that in many developing countries the population does not reach the ages where coronavirus hospitalises or kills most people - the over-80s, or even over-70s. Poverty and standard of living kills them before a coronavirus could. The science is at an early stage on this but there is also a suggestion of differences in how the immune system responds with people who are used to living in poor conditions. That's something that most likely we won't know more on for years until the world opens up and data is analysed.
Take the president of Tanzania, he just decided one day that the virus didn't exist. He recommended prayer and herbal remedies and for months they put it down to pneumonia. But recently high profile politicians have been dying and so, surprisingly, they have now started taking measures in the last few days. Currently their hospitals are overflowing with patients.
Personally I don't trust figures in several developing or even some notable first world countries, they are ripe with corruption and are modern dictatorships, especially in Africa and Asia. In those cases you will not see the supreme ruler or monarch admit to struggling with a pandemic.
The sad fact is also that in many developing countries the population does not reach the ages where coronavirus hospitalises or kills most people - the over-80s, or even over-70s. Poverty and standard of living kills them before a coronavirus could. The science is at an early stage on this but there is also a suggestion of differences in how the immune system responds with people who are used to living in poor conditions. That's something that most likely we won't know more on for years until the world opens up and data is analysed.
Hospitalizations is a huge step. I think 99% of the public doesn't realize that, for statistical power, vaccines are measured against only symptoms representing the light, initial symptomatic impacts of the virus. That's not the same as measuring them against severe symptoms,, hospitalizations, deaths, transmission, or even infection. The immune system is a complicated beast ... it's not all or nothing.
T-cells, for example, only kick on after you've been infected. There are multiple stages of immune systems, and the vaccines are really only tested against the first hurdle -- basically to get the data the fastest to make a statistically significant observation.
Human attention prefers fear over good news, that much is true. And traditional and social media feed the beast, no question. But I want to lay down some criticisms here where this is a very flippant dismissal about not acknowledging the things you don't know so you can pretend and move on, because there's a ton we don't know.
Most people carry false mental models of how their immune system works (as if it's just a single wall for the virus to jump over). And I think there's enough people fed up with the negative news they use that saturation of negativity to turn off and tune out so they can escape to their own reality bubbles. Cover ears, stick head in sand, scream blah-blah-blah and ascribe any uncertainty as inherently negative (it's not) or a conspiratorial manufacture of unnecessary fear.
Strains or no strains, let me repeat my first point: the vaccines are tested against your susceptibility for mild symptomatic responses to the virus. They're not tested against severe cases, hospitalizations, deaths, transmission, or even basic infection. Saying that doesn't mean I'm supporting the fear orgy. It means we have to acknowledge what we don't know yet.
So yes, you can be vaccinated and infected... but very unlikely that you will show mild symptoms. With the limited data we have, we are assuming that will lead to fewer hospitalizations, severe cases, and deaths. But we don't know that yet. And we certainly don't know if vaccinated people are any less likely to be carriers who can infect others.
Also, "underdeveloped" countries have largely fared better than "first world countries" because their average population age is 15 (Niger) instead of 44 (Italy). There just aren't a lot of old Africans like there Italy where there's a massive older generation. That's not everything, but it's a huge statistical dimension. In Niger, 60% of the population is under 20. In Italy, that figure is 18%. Those "first world" countries tend to have lower birth rates and people with great life longevity. Voila!
T-cells, for example, only kick on after you've been infected. There are multiple stages of immune systems, and the vaccines are really only tested against the first hurdle -- basically to get the data the fastest to make a statistically significant observation.
Human attention prefers fear over good news, that much is true. And traditional and social media feed the beast, no question. But I want to lay down some criticisms here where this is a very flippant dismissal about not acknowledging the things you don't know so you can pretend and move on, because there's a ton we don't know.
Most people carry false mental models of how their immune system works (as if it's just a single wall for the virus to jump over). And I think there's enough people fed up with the negative news they use that saturation of negativity to turn off and tune out so they can escape to their own reality bubbles. Cover ears, stick head in sand, scream blah-blah-blah and ascribe any uncertainty as inherently negative (it's not) or a conspiratorial manufacture of unnecessary fear.
Strains or no strains, let me repeat my first point: the vaccines are tested against your susceptibility for mild symptomatic responses to the virus. They're not tested against severe cases, hospitalizations, deaths, transmission, or even basic infection. Saying that doesn't mean I'm supporting the fear orgy. It means we have to acknowledge what we don't know yet.
So yes, you can be vaccinated and infected... but very unlikely that you will show mild symptoms. With the limited data we have, we are assuming that will lead to fewer hospitalizations, severe cases, and deaths. But we don't know that yet. And we certainly don't know if vaccinated people are any less likely to be carriers who can infect others.
Also, "underdeveloped" countries have largely fared better than "first world countries" because their average population age is 15 (Niger) instead of 44 (Italy). There just aren't a lot of old Africans like there Italy where there's a massive older generation. That's not everything, but it's a huge statistical dimension. In Niger, 60% of the population is under 20. In Italy, that figure is 18%. Those "first world" countries tend to have lower birth rates and people with great life longevity. Voila!
We are like 2nd best country in Europe when it comes to vaccines and it's getting worse and worse here. At this point we're on the verge of more restrictions with a slight chance of another curfew. We're getting 4000 cases per day, hospitals are full and it's just getting worse. It seems we'll have restaurants, coffee shops closed for 7 days fully, or we'll have even harder measures.