Topic: COVID-19:VERIFIED news sources, 0 politishit, 0 CONSPIRACY SHITE

[Red_Mist]

Statistically significant drop in deaths, no?

Unfortunately, no mate. They are roughly level (at the moment) week on week, but will no doubt begin to trend upwards again after the lag, following the upwards trends in cases.

Deaths in the last 7 days: 782
Deaths in the preceding 7 days: 785

Cases in the last 7 days: 255,385
Cases in the preceding 7 days: 235,724

[PaulF]

Unless,possibly, a decent number of those cases are school kids who thankfully, mostly, seem to just ride it out?

[Red_Mist]

Unless,possibly, a decent number of those cases are school kids who thankfully, mostly, seem to just ride it out?

Hopefully yes, and that is a good point. Fingers crossed.  But the problem is that school kids do pass it on to parents, teachers, grandparents, uncles, aunties, etc etc, especially with social contact being more indoors as the weather gets colder.

[carling]

First I’ll say that I hope a Grace recovers, shitty thing for a 15 year old to have deal with. And that’s just the effects of the virus and not the actions of the people outside the vaccination centre.

Secondly though, getting riled up their actions - and yours and my immediate response to their actions, hides the real issue. They’re not evil, they don’t deserve a beating or death. They deserve leadership, both politically and scientifically, that has been absolutely lacking in these past 18 months. Even that statement is wrong, it’s been lacking for much longer than 18 months. That hurts for me to say as an immunologist but it’s absolutely true. We’ve left anti-vax untruths  run through the public psyche for decades and have made no firm attempts to correct it. Our problem now is because it’s duped so many people that include those in the political and yes even some in the scientific spheres. It’s a stain on us for lack of education, not on them for a lack of understanding.

The greatest legacy of this pandemic I can see is that the public have developed an amazing knowledge of their own immune system and how it works that they never had prior to this pandemic. You can see it in this thread as it’s grown to 1,500 pages through discussion and dialogue and questions.

The worst legacy of this pandemic is that we’ve left so many behind, with zero knowledge of how their own immune system works. They’ve been left behind though because of that lack of leadership from political and scientific figures. The solution to anti-vax sentiment is education. Always was and always will be.

I remember watching this as a kid. Simple explanation of a complex thing like immunity. Sometimes though the simple explanations are the ones that stay with you. I think we watched this in school actually, it’s all about education, and education doesn’t have to mean that you know exactly how it works, just an general idea is good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj6G986lpag

(Wow - 1987 - I’d still recommend the entire above Once upon a time...life for all your young kids, an amazing piece of work that every kid should see)

100% this.

My friend who is deepest into the conspiracy theories is also my friend with the least understanding about the immune system.  It's pretty much a direct correlation.

[No666]

Yeah, chemists seem to have doses available, I booked myself an appointment at my local Boots for Friday but had to pay £15 and not everyone may be able to pay for them with what else is going on right now. Last yeah I had it done at my GPs as I am classed as vulnerable but very much at the bottom of that list and ended up not getting it until mid to late Jan by which time most of the winter has already gone.

If you are eligible for a free 'flu jab, your chemist should offer it for free, too, no? Certainly, they started providing mine free of charge once I got the bus pass.

[killer-heels]

There’s no news yet but I wouldn’t hold your breath, they are only so far getting through an average of about 200k boosters a day so unless they pick up the pace it’s gonna take a fair while to get through the 32 million elderly and vulnerable before they even consider the rest of the population.

But then surely if people are not taking them then those who want them should be able to?

I hope we get the chance to acquire them privately pretty soon.

[rob1966]

Yeah, chemists seem to have doses available, I booked myself an appointment at my local Boots for Friday but had to pay £15 and not everyone may be able to pay for them with what else is going on right now. Last yeah I had it done at my GPs as I am classed as vulnerable but very much at the bottom of that list and ended up not getting it until mid to late Jan by which time most of the winter has already gone.

If you got it free via the NHS, you should get it free from Boots - mine is under the NHS scheme at Lloyds pharmacy

[Wabaloolah]

15 year old girl in a wheelchair gets called a lab rat by anti vaxxers outside vaccination center in Wales

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58856068

the c*nts have started protesting outside some local secondary schools where I am now

How brave of them picking on a mother and her wheelchair bound daughter.

Scum

[The G in Gerrard]

My GP is holding a flu vaccination center this weekend for anyone eligible.

[The G in Gerrard]

But then surely if people are not taking them then those who want them should be able to?

I hope we get the chance to acquire them privately pretty soon.

Won't be giving boosters privately surely?

[RainbowFlick]

I'm convinced there are State actors behind the Covid misinformation.

All the lads in the Kremlin and Beijing having a good laugh at the thickos on the Island.

ah a conspiracy about a conspiracy.

it's just grifters mate. they make good money and get fame and notoriety feeding off people with insecurity, naivety, lack of education or just struggling to understand what's going on. fingers should be pointed at the tech companies that let algorithms put people through rabbit holes.

[So… Howard Philips]

ah a conspiracy about a conspiracy.

it's just grifters mate. they make good money and get fame and notoriety feeding off people with insecurity, naivety, lack of education or just struggling to understand what's going on. fingers should be pointed at the tech companies that let algorithms put people through rabbit holes.

Take your point bout the tech companies but they don't dig the rabbit holes. Who does?

[west_london_red]

But then surely if people are not taking them then those who want them should be able to?

I hope we get the chance to acquire them privately pretty soon.

People may not be taking them because they don’t want them, it might be a case of we don’t have the doses to go any faster? Don’t forget the roughly 200k I said was only boosters, we still have some stragglers in terms of adults and then kids so the daily number of doses administered will be higher then 200k, all of who will be getting Pfizer so the supply might not be there.

[west_london_red]

If you are eligible for a free 'flu jab, your chemist should offer it for free, too, no? Certainly, they started providing mine free of charge once I got the bus pass.

If you got it free via the NHS, you should get it free from Boots - mine is under the NHS scheme at Lloyds pharmacy

When I booked my appointment the site asks you a load of questions, I answered those honestly and ended being asked to pay £15, but like I said I had it free last year and from a Covid perspective I am classed as group 6 ie those with underlying medical conditions that put me at greater risk. But it’s no big deal, main thing is getting the jab.

[Macphisto80]

Take your point bout the tech companies but they don't dig the rabbit holes. Who does?

It's just old deep south redneck paranoia and propaganda conspiracy. A lot of it probably dates back to the cold war and the idea that there's a deep state infiltrating the government controlled by the commies. Chemtrails, fluoride in water, secret abductions in the night and experiments performed by Aliens which is actually a CIA psyops. The NWO. All that shit. The pandemic has basically allowed these nutcases to escape from the basement and into the limelight, or ironically, into the mainstream media. You know: the sort of thing they hate but actually need to thrive. Social media is like a gift from God for the c*nts.

[TSC]

40224 new cases and 28 deaths reported today.

[Trump's tiny tiny hands]

40224 new cases and 28 deaths reported today.

No weekend lag there then... 

[[new username under construction]]

No weekend lag there then... 

Still down from last monday

[TepidT2O]

Still down from last monday

35000 last Monday weren’t there?

[[new username under construction]]

35000 last Monday weren’t there?

Going off the 4th on the website says 43,000, unless I'm reading it wrong which I might be

[rob1966]

35000 last Monday weren’t there?

Yep, 35077 and 33 deaths

[Wabaloolah]

It's been around the same figure, north of 35,000 for what seems like months, deaths are averaging around 150 per day each week and it's become accepted as the norm.

Whereas in France, Germany, Spain and Italy cases are around a fifth of what we are seeing over here. If there appared to be an indication that things are heading in the right direction then you could accept it but it isn't even ticking downwards. The figure has been the same pretty much 35k cases a day for an age.

Johnson has pissed off on holiday and all is back to normal, yet people are still going to hospital and 100+ people are dying.

[TSC]

No weekend lag there then... 

m
There may be in deaths.  Usually catches up about Wednesday from any weekend lag.

[[new username under construction]]

There you go, I was looking at by

specimen date - 4th - 43007
reported date  - 4th - 35077

[Legs]

It's been around the same figure, north of 35,000 for what seems like months, deaths are averaging around 150 per day each week and it's become accepted as the norm.

Whereas in France, Germany, Spain and Italy cases are around a fifth of what we are seeing over here. If there appared to be an indication that things are heading in the right direction then you could accept it but it isn't even ticking downwards. The figure has been the same pretty much 35k cases a day for an age.

Johnson has pissed off on holiday and all is back to normal, yet people are still going to hospital and 100+ people are dying.

Are we testing more in the uk than some other European countries ?

The figures do seem to be the same and as it gets to winter will go up if we continue with these numbers.

I’m not sure what we can do though to get the numbers lower other than a full on lockdown which the govt won’t do.

I was hoping with Boris being away it might help us then you look at his chums and realise no nothing is going to improve !

[Nick110581]

It's been around the same figure, north of 35,000 for what seems like months, deaths are averaging around 150 per day each week and it's become accepted as the norm.

Whereas in France, Germany, Spain and Italy cases are around a fifth of what we are seeing over here. If there appared to be an indication that things are heading in the right direction then you could accept it but it isn't even ticking downwards. The figure has been the same pretty much 35k cases a day for an age.

Johnson has pissed off on holiday and all is back to normal, yet people are still going to hospital and 100+ people are dying.

Do we know the reasons for the numbers? What are Europe doing differently?

[TSC]

And still this cabal won’t have a public inquiry, I wonder why?

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-serious-errors-by-ministers-and-scientific-advisers-cost-thousands-of-lives-during-pandemic-says-report-by-mps-12431778

[TSC]

Do we know the reasons for the numbers? What are Europe doing differently?

Generally nation states didn’t completely abandon control measures while infections were growing.

[Libertine]

Do we know the reasons for the numbers? What are Europe doing differently?

Still some restrictions in place, including Covid passes in many countries. Also slightly higher vaccination rates for some countries, with different usage (much more RNA) and I guess a larger proportion of teenagers vaccinated as most started on that in the early summer.

[Nick110581]

Generally nation states didn’t completely abandon control measures while infections were growing.

Mask wearing near me is probably around 10% now.

Went to the Drs yesterday to collect a prescription - another lady was holding a tissue over her mouth and asked to leave but carried on talking for five minutes explaining why she didn’t have a mask.

The Covid pass thing is also weird. Some events insist on it and others don’t.

[thaddeus]

Some of the smaller European countries have higher Covid rates per person than the UK (Lithuania, Romania and Estonia) but the UK is by some distance the worst of the larger European nations.

Generally nation states didn’t completely abandon control measures while infections were growing.

Still some restrictions in place, including Covid passes in many countries. Also slightly higher vaccination rates for some countries, with different usage (much more RNA) and I guess a larger proportion of teenagers vaccinated as most started on that in the early summer.

The UK is also carrying out more tests than most European countries.

Our test positivity rate is lower than Germany and Ireland currently but both have quite low testing rates (Germany in-particular is amongst the lowest in the Europe).  If the cases aren't there then more testing wouldn't find them but some countries are almost certainly underreporting case numbers to a greater extent than us.

That all said, we're not some crazy testing volumes outlier.  Greece, Cyprus and Austria have all got far higher testing rates than us but still lower cases per person.

[CornerFlag]

Balance for the report that allowed the government to kill thousands, courtesy of the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58876089

Spoiler

Covid: UK start to pandemic worst public health failure ever, MPs say

The UK's failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the worst ever public health failures, a report by MPs says.

The government approach - backed by its scientists - was to try to manage the situation and in effect achieve herd immunity by infection, it said.

This led to a delay in introducing the first lockdown, costing lives.

But the report by the cross-party group said there had been successes too - in particular the vaccination programme.

It described the whole approach - from the research and development through to the rollout of the jabs - as "one of the most effective initiatives in UK history".

The report predominantly focuses on the response to the pandemic in England. The committee did not look at steps taken individually by Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The findings are detailed in the long-awaited report - Coronavirus: Lessons learned to date - from the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee, which contain MPs from all parties.

Across 150 pages, the report covers a variety of successes and failings.

MPs call the pandemic, which has claimed more than 150,000 lives in the UK and nearly five million worldwide so far, the "biggest peacetime challenge" for a century.

Tory MPs Jeremy C*nt and Greg Clark, who chair the committees, said the nature of the pandemic meant it was "impossible to get everything right".

"The UK has combined some big achievements with some big mistakes. It is vital to learn from both," they added in a statement to accompany the report.

A government spokesperson said lessons would be learned, which was why there would be a full public inquiry next year.

He added: "We have never shied away from taking quick and decisive action to save lives and protect our NHS, including introducing restrictions and lockdowns.

"Thanks to a collective national effort, we avoided NHS services becoming overwhelmed."

But Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the findings were "damning" and showed what "monumental errors" had been made.

And the group representing families who have lost loved-ones during the pandemic - Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice - criticised the committees for not speaking to any relatives of people who died.

Lockdown delay mistake - but scientists to blame too

When Covid hit, the government's approach was to manage its spread through the population rather than try to stop it - or herd immunity by infection as the report called it.

The report said this was based on dealing with a flu pandemic, and was done on the advice of its scientific advisers on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).

But the idea was not challenged enough by ministers in any part of the UK, indicating a "degree of group-think".

Although to some degree other parts of Europe were guilty of this too, the MPs said.

It meant the country was not as open to approaches being taken elsewhere, such as Asia where countries imposed tight border controls as soon as Covid started circulating.

The result was that too little was done in the early weeks to stop Covid spreading, despite evidence from China and then Italy that it was a virus that was highly infectious, caused severe illness and for which there was no cure.

"The veil of ignorance through which the UK viewed the initial weeks of the pandemic was partly self-inflicted," said the report.

Asked whether herd immunity had been a policy in the early days, Jeremy C*nt, chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, said he did not think there was any desire for the whole population to be infected.

However he said there was a "fatalism that it was likely that in the end that will be the only way that we will stop the progress of the virus".

"I think we wanted to do everything we could but once we had concluded there was community transmission, that was going to be very difficult," he told the BBC's Today programme.

The committees said decisions on lockdowns and social distancing during the early weeks of the pandemic - and the advice that led to them - ranked as "one of the most important public health failures the UK has ever experienced".

The advice from scientists changed on 16 March 2020, but it was only a week later that a lockdown was announced.

"This slow and gradualist approach was not inadvertent, nor did it reflect bureaucratic delay or disagreement between ministers and their advisers," the report says.

"It was a deliberate policy - proposed by official scientific advisers and adopted by the governments of all of the nations of the UK.

"It is now clear that this was the wrong policy, and that it led to a higher initial death toll than would have resulted from a more emphatic early policy. In a pandemic spreading rapidly and exponentially, every week counted."

It suggests a reported crowd of more than 50,000 at a Liverpool FC and Atletico Madrid football match on 11 March - the day the coronavirus was categorised as a pandemic by the WHO - and the 250,000 at Cheltenham Festival of Racing between 10 and 13 March, may have spread the virus.

The MPs also highlighted how ministers in England rejected scientific advice to have a two-week "circuit-breaker" in the autumn.

They said it was impossible to know whether that would have prevented the second lockdown in November, although they pointed out it had not in Wales.

Asked who was accountable for mistakes made, Greg Clark, the chair of the science and technology committee, said that in any democracy, politicians were accountable, but stressed everyone, from the prime minister down, was trying to do the best they could.

"We did get some things right and we got some things wrong and it seems essential we don't just let that pass without trying to squeeze out the lessons and confront some difficult truths," he told BBC Breakfast.

The 'slow and chaotic' start for Test and Trace

The UK was one of the first countries in the world to develop a test for Covid in January 2020, but despite this failed to translate that into an effective test-and-trace system during the first year of the pandemic.

Testing in the community stopped in March 2020 and for weeks during the first peak only those admitted to hospital were tested.

It was not until May that the NHS Test and Trace system was launched in England, but the report described its start as "slow, uncertain and often chaotic".

It said the system was too centralised, only later making use of the expertise in local public health teams run by councils.

But it did praise the target set by Health Secretary Matt Hancock to get to 100,000 tests a day by the end of April, saying it played an important part in galvanising the system.

The vaccine rollout and other successes

The greatest praise though was reserved for the vaccination programme and the way the government supported the development of a number of vaccines, including the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.

It said the whole programme was one of the most effective initiatives in history, and will ultimately help save millions of lives here and across the world.

A key step, taken early on following a suggestion from chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, was to set up a task force that combined the talents of scientists, the NHS and the private sector led by the "bold leadership" of venture capitalist Kate Bingham.

The development of treatments, such as dexamethasone, for Covid through the UK Recovery Trial was another area where the UK's response was genuinely world-leading, the report said.

And the NHS and government were also credited with the way hospital intensive care capacity was increased to ensure the majority who needed hospital treatment received it.

How certain groups fared worse

The MPs said the pandemic had also exacerbated existing social, economic and health inequalities which would need addressing.

The report highlighted "unacceptably high" death rates in ethnic minority groups and among people with learning disabilities and autism.

For ethnic minorities, there was a variety of factors, including possible biological reasons and increased exposure because of housing and working conditions.

For people with learning disabilities, not enough thought was given to how restrictions would have a detrimental impact on them - particularly in terms of accessing health care more generally. Do not resuscitate orders were also used inappropriately.

There was a lack of priority attached to care homes too at the start of the pandemic.

The rapid discharge of people from hospital into care homes without adequate testing or isolation was a prime example of this.

This, combined with untested staff bringing infection into homes from the community, led to many thousands of deaths which could have been avoided.

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign group said many people would see the report as a "slap in the face".

"The report it's produced is laughable, and more interested in political arguments about whether you can bring laptops to Cobra meetings than it is in the experiences of those who tragically lost parents, partners or children to Covid-19," said Hannah Brady, the group's spokeswoman.

[close]

Posted without comment, other than this is some of the worst presentation of the facts I've seen in terms of the report itself.  This reporter is trying to "balance" things in the worst way.

Report is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/81/health-and-social-care-committee/news/157991/coronavirus-lessons-learned-to-date-report-published/

[Nick110581]

Balance for the report that allowed the government to kill thousands, courtesy of the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58876089

Spoiler

[close]

Posted without comment, other than this is some of the worst presentation of the facts I've seen in terms of the report itself.  This reporter is trying to "balance" things in the worst way.

Report is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/81/health-and-social-care-committee/news/157991/coronavirus-lessons-learned-to-date-report-published/

The report is obviously damning but they won’t give a shit.

The arrogance of the idiots doing the news today proves it.

And the public will just say ‘they did their best’.

[Shankly998]

Balance for the report that allowed the government to kill thousands, courtesy of the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58876089

Spoiler

[close]

Posted without comment, other than this is some of the worst presentation of the facts I've seen in terms of the report itself.  This reporter is trying to "balance" things in the worst way.

Report is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/81/health-and-social-care-committee/news/157991/coronavirus-lessons-learned-to-date-report-published/

"Early response worst public health failure ever."

Watch there be no consequences coming out of this.

[carling]

Some of the smaller European countries have higher Covid rates per person than the UK (Lithuania, Romania and Estonia) but the UK is by some distance the worst of the larger European nations.
The UK is also carrying out more tests than most European countries.

Our test positivity rate is lower than Germany and Ireland currently but both have quite low testing rates (Germany in-particular is amongst the lowest in the Europe).  If the cases aren't there then more testing wouldn't find them but some countries are almost certainly underreporting case numbers to a greater extent than us.

That all said, we're not some crazy testing volumes outlier.  Greece, Cyprus and Austria have all got far higher testing rates than us but still lower cases per person.

Number of cases is a pretty useless metric when comparing countries.  Test positivity rate is much more telling.

[Commie Bobbie]

There should be resignations and jail sentences for those responsible.

Instead, there will be cushy directorships or banal columns in client media.

Sums up this hellscape of a country.

Burn it all down.

[rob1966]

Excuses about it all being new already being made. Except its fucking not new, they were fucking warned in 2016 we were not prepared and what needed doing.

Blood on your hands you fucking evil scum.

[Red-Soldier]

No good will come of anything whilst these are in power.  They're the lowest of the low!

[carling]

Never forget..

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/n3NAx3tsy-k" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/n3NAx3tsy-k</a>

[BobOnATank]

Dog whistling incoming tomorrow around frosts panto reaction to the EU proposed changes to the NI protocol which will clear this off the front pages and cheer up their base no end standing up to the EU bullies... If/when an actual review is conducted then they can always constantly refer to this report to say "we already know this", old news etc. great for taking the heat out of the eventual findings and if required line up another bit of dog whistling bigotry to keep the tory voters happy, job done.

Plus with Johnson on hols nothing is linked to him in the press so he's in the clear - all the scientists fault anyway isn't it /s