Wednesday 6 January 2021

Not enough vaccine is not the same as lack of effort

 All I read around at the moment is how incompetent the Government are, interestingly, this applies pretty much to all Countries bar New Zealand and China - where the Government is amazing and beneficent of course. 

In the UK, bored of the new lockdown and desperate to get out of things, pundits everywhere are asking why the Government has not asked.....taxi drivers, the army, pharmacists, vets, GP's, delivery drivers, schools, sports facilities...to help with the vaccine roll-out. 

It is as if the only limiting factor is willpower - the real issue is lack of vaccine availability and the sign-off to use it once tested. With the way production is going, we will be lucky to get to more than 1 million doses a week in the next month and thereafter it might ramp up. It is not just production, but of course AstraZeneca has sold the vaccine all around the world, the UK only gets a portion of what is produced. 

Still, it says a lot about how low the level is of the the commentators on the virus are at the moment, of course Keir Starmer is king of this battle, demanding 2 million a week vaccinated just because he wants to set Boris a target to fail at. 

With the quality of insight offered across the UK currently, no wonder we are in a mess....and we are keeping kids off school too, not helping improve the long-term prospects of this improving either. 


31 comments:

Thud said...

Pfizer and astra between them already supplied several million before certification plus we have had another month of manufacture, there is no shortage just lack of will, look at Israel.

Old BE said...

The bottle necks seem to be the bottles (ho ho) and the MHRA batch testing.

10/10 to the BrewDog chap for volunteering his bars as vaccination centres. Very clever self-promotion - given he knows that suitable venues are not in short supply.

Elby the Beserk said...

A state of utter incompetence and total chaos is up on us.
Digging around the ONS stats for notifiable diseases, it seems that, rather then Covid-19 2.0 sweeping the country, next to nothing has happened.

May I refer you to the last two weeks stats for notifiable infectious diseases.

Here are the links...


Week ending 27/12/20

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948507/NOIDS-weekly-report-week52-2020-1.pdf

Total notified for Covid-19 : 85 (Yes, EIGHTY FIVE)

Week ending 27/12/20

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948507/NOIDS-weekly-report-week52-2020-1.pdf

Total notified for Covid-19 : 37 (Yes, THIRTY SEVEN)

i.e. <9 new cases per day for 2 weeks.

For this, we shut the country down.


Meanwhile, dear old Slog finds this...

"For example, care home excess seasonal deaths are 25,665 (30.6% above average) for the latest 40 weeks – with 18,882 deaths associated with COVID. Similarly, excess deaths at home – where people didn’t ‘want to bother’ the “overwhelmed” NHS – have been 37,226 (39.9% above average). By contrast, NHS hospitals have recorded just 9,959 (5.5% above average) excess deaths in total over the period….and compared to some recent years, seasonal bed take-up is below normal."

Beyond FUBAR into realms hitherto unplumbed.

What we do know is that the state no longer functions. It simply reacts.

Words fail me



Elby the Beserk said...

Not to mention, PHE, who said they were buggered if they'd work (work?) Sundays to expedite the roll out of the vaccine - for heaven's sake, public sector workers working Sundays?

Anonymous said...

@elby

These figures are from the Registered Medical Practitioners who have to notify if they suspect any of these cases.
They must not wait for laboratory confirmation.

I suspect most RMP are simply saying go get a test and the laboratory and or test centres are updating.
Clearly there is a disconnect between reality and notifications.
I think we can all agree we are in a pandemic

This might help

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/notifiable-diseases-and-causative-organisms-how-to-report#laboratories-report-notifiable-organisms-causative-agents

Anonymous said...

Beserk? You are completely bonkers, mate.

Old BE said...

“I haven’t died yet, so there obviously isn’t really a deadly disease going around”.

dearieme said...

My wife: "I know someone who's had the jab."

Her pal: "I know someone too."

My wife: "We're doing better than France, then."

E-K said...

Lockdowns expected next winter too and there is an expert in the papers today saying that we will be in lockdown the winter after next as well.

I did say from the outset. Lockdowns were going to go on for longer than expected and a vaccine would only bring more severity to those lockdowns. The vaccine roll out will falter - not merely because of incompetence but simply because it is a very difficult thing to do and there is lots of global competition for the product.

A pen friend of mine asked me today "So how do you Focus Protect a family with Dad who works in an office, two kids at school and a vulnerable Mum."

After pointing out that locking down the country for two to three years was not viable either I said this, "You isolate the whole family and give them assistance - allow Dad to tele-work from home. What is not on is treating the vast majority of families with no vulnerables at home the same."

In WW2 they evacuated millions of children out of the cities. They knew how to make tough decisions in those days.

Incidentally. I have heard no mention that the spread of the virus could be facilitated by malign forces in our country such as XR extremists who may like the idea of back-to-nature that the virus brings. There must be at least some of this going on, surely ? Bio-terrorism by factions who are against us ?

Don Cox said...

" "So how do you Focus Protect a family with Dad who works in an office, two kids at school and a vulnerable Mum.""

You vaccinate the mum. Dad too, if he's over 40.

Don Cox

E-K said...

Indeed, but that wasn't the question I was asked.

Another thing along that line.

Old males are most vulnerable. Shouldn't they be above old females to get the country back to normal quicker ? Or is that sexist and non PC ?

Bill Quango MP said...

for heaven's sake, public sector workers working Sundays?

Barbarism
Thin end of the wedge.
Bennite solution

I’ve sent my son back to school. He wasn’t learning anything at home except the transfer values of the FIFA 21 players.

Sobers said...

There's only one stat I believe in all this and its the number of coffins. Not from covid, from everything. Thats the only bit of data that can't be messed about with by politicians and 'scientists'. And according to that, the pandemic ended in early June last year. Everything else is mass hysteria and political theatre.

Anonymous said...

Plus there's a hopefully small (no one knows) but non-zero chance that both CV19 and the vaccines to it will damage female fertility. Ten million fact check websites will tell you "THERE IS NO EVIDENCE", but of course to present evidence you have to look for it, and no one has.

Apparently the Covid "spike" protein that the various vaccines are targeting is similar to a protein produced in very early pregnancy called syncytin-1. This is important in the development of the placenta in early (4 days!) pregnancy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncytin-1

"Syncytin-1 mediated trophoblast fusion is essential for normal placental development."

Obviously it wouldn't be great for the birth rate if the immune system was stimulated to attack covid and ended up also attacking syncytin-1 - although there's also the possibility that antibodies in a healthy young woman who's fought off covid might then also target syncytin-1, vaccine or no.

It could almost have been developed as a biological weapon to lower fertility.

Happy New Year!

Timbo614 said...

Jeez, guys[a non-gender specific term]!
This comment section has gone the same way as The Times comments section!

Unbelievable what they will post there and now you are all starting!

WTF are you all on - gone covid-stir-crazy?

It appears to me from my no doubt innocent and simple perspective that the gov. are doing their best. Given the planetary shambles, we ain't doing that bad.
It's NOT made up.
It's not conspiracy to lock us all in rules and regs forever.
I'm staying well out of everybodys way - you lot can take your chances.

I will add that if Boris survives all the $hit being thrown at him and it all works out in the end (which it will) You'll never get rid of him until he wants to go!

So there! :)




Anonymous said...

There's no claim vaccine stops transmission, only reduce symptoms. So whilst we're obsessed with PCR testing everything that moves, there will continue to be covid "cases" after everyone is vaccinated.
I expect lockdowns will likely be a yearly occurrence, especially when the virus mutates.
The only way I see different is if Boris is pushed out and the next PM is someone who can stand up to SAGE and the doom modelers - I don't see anyone on either side that inspires confidence.

This must be something that units left and right - the agreement both sides are stuffed full of really shit politicians.

Thud said...

The process to vaccinate the first section of the population is already speeding up, since Monday it has already started to be made more efficient, by the end of next week it will be in full flow. Multi batches from Astra now being certificated, wait time down from 20 to 4 or five days and next week more gps, pharmacists etc injecting.

PushingTheBoundaries said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PushingTheBoundaries said...

Thought it was interesting that on Monday's PC that Chris Witty made the explicit point that we should get used to it being here and the deaths that go with it, drawing a comparison with Flu, it's vaccine and the deaths we endure already.

PushingTheBoundaries said...

Happy to be corrected, but from the guidelines I currently see, pregnant women, or those that trying in the next 3 months are advised not to get the vaccine. Would this perhaps suggest that there is problem but is transitory and not a long-term problem?

Anonymous said...

@pushingtheboundaries
It wouldn’t suggest anything.

Vaccine trails and phases don’t deal in suggestion.

I doubt any females trying to conceive where allowed to be part of the trails.

The commenters here are really lacking any sort of analytical thought.

Anonymous said...

@sobers

Try calling an ambulance you’ll be on hold for a while.
Try getting in A&E they are full.
There are simply to many ill people with CV in hospital.

To say you want death is farcical.
Missing early treatment of emergency cases can have life changing effects.

I hope you and your family don’t require medical assistance anytime soon.
You may not get the treatment you need.

Nick Drew said...

For various sad reasons I have been on the inside of a hospital in the last week - one that (I learn) is regarded in the UK as last year having developed models of good practice during covid

they now have so many covid patients, they can no longer accommodate them in an isolated part of the hospital - they have 'covid bays' in regular wards

(unless of course it's an elaborate scam, all rigged up to deceive me - next door to the studio where they faked the lunar landing)

HarryD said...

If that were the case you would expect every newly pregnant female to suffer from covod like symptoms when they fell pregnant, something that has not occurred in the real world. Shitty scaremongering of the first order I am afraid.

E-K said...

Harry D

I don't believe it is scaremongering.

We have the vaccine now and must give it our best shot. (No pun)

It's a terrible situation to be in but we've got this far (I've always done my social distancing and mask bit btw. You get hectored by a Karen if you don't.)

There is a meme of an aged and decrepit Boris saying "One last push."

Be prepared that this state of lockdowns could well last until the winter after next. I don't think the national psyche will ever recover to what it was.

Thud said...

Military now involved in the vaccine plan with conference at 5 today, just another step in the process but it is speeding up and the numbers will be reached.

Anonymous said...

HarryD - "If that were the case you would expect every newly pregnant female to suffer from covod like symptoms when they fell pregnant, something that has not occurred in the real world"

No, because up to now there has been no reason for the body to produce antibodies against syncytin-1, production of which is associated with early pregnancy, not illness. Now there's a virus which DOES make you ill (although not very ill in the young) which has a protein spike very like syncytin-1. The "vaccines" (which don't protect against infection or transmission apparently, just reduces the symptoms - odd sort of vaccine) specifically targets the spike, so theoretically could potentially target syncytin-1 (as theoretically could antibodies produced naturally against covid, IF they target the spike).

Old BE said...

From the bbc:

Staff in one of England's largest hospitals say they are admitting patients in their 20s and 30s to intensive care and it is impossible to predict how any patient will respond to treatment.

St George's Hospital in Tooting, south-west London, has had to vastly expand intensive care capacity and move under-qualified staff to high dependency roles.

Medical registrar Omome Etomi says: "I can't tell you who's going to be unwell and not, who's going to improve and go home and who's going to have a longer stay in ITU,

"I have admitted patients to the intensive care unit in their 20s and 30s, people who have no pre-existing conditions," he tells the PA news agency. "There's almost no pattern to it - we just can't say."

Dr Mark Haden, an emergency department consultant, says the rising numbers of very sick patients is having a huge impact on staff.

"Everyone's stress levels are higher than usual," he says. "Everyone is working to the limit, to the threshold of what they're able to.

"The hospital bed occupancy is very, very high, it has lots of Covid patients as inpatients at the moment. It's very stressful for staff and that is starting to show."

Old BE said...

Take care ND and family

Nick Drew said...

Thanks

dearieme said...

20s and 30s - sounds like flu. Flu can be deadly too, so not necessarily good news. But if it is flu the Covid jabs will give no protection from it. Oh dear, oh dear.