COVID-19/Coronavirus Information and Support Thread (see OP for useful links)

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Touring Mars
Meanwhile, Scotland's pubs can reopen in two weeks' time... but cannot serve alcohol indoors.

This explains what I saw at lunchtime today - a small street full of pubs near work (called Ashton Lane), and two bars are currently erecting massive canopies that will shelter folks standing outside.

The trouble is, there simply isn't enough room outside for people to safely socially distance, even in bars that have beer gardens, which one of these bars doesn't have.

Of course, people are raging about it, and bar owners are in despair with the Scottish government, but alas we are still in the situation where there are no winners... and no easy answers.

Pubs are going to have to get really serious about who they let it and how to keep people safe, but I don't think they are going to be able to do it while turning a profit... and hence, bars will tend to over-fill, people will flock to places where they are allowed to drink, and the numbers of cases will start to skyrocket again, and then we'll be back into yet another lockdown.

I fear that many, many venues will not survive another lockdown, let alone another year or more of serious restrictions, and hence everyone is praying that the vaccines deliver the goods in terms of keeping case numbers (and, most importantly, hospitalisations) down, because if they don't, we are in big trouble.

And yes, none of this considers what might happen if the P.1 (Brazil) or B.1351 (SA) variants start to spread.
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A mate of mine used to run a pub for a brewery. He had me look for an "issue" in the books for him. (simple number problem) You would be shocked how little you make on a pint. They really do have to pack them in and sell them a lot of beer to make it work. I'm surprised they are still going concerns.
 
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Tired Tyres
A mate of mine used to run a pub for a brewery. He had me look for an "issue" in the books for him. (simple number problem) You would be shocked how little you make on a pint. They really do have to pack them in and sell them a lot of beer to make it work.
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Indeed.

I used to work in my mate's pub that his Dad owned (though it was a 'Belhaven' pub... still don't really know how it all worked, but hey). It was tough... my mate was the de facto manager, and his two older brothers worked the bar and the door, while I was a barman and general dogsbody... I got paid £20 cash in hand for my shift, which sometimes only ended at 2am. One night, I got 14 pints bought for me by customers, and my mate allowed me to have one... at 1.30 am. Funnily enough, though, his brothers loved me and my mates coming to the bar, and they used to give us loads of free drinks. And, to be fair to my mate, he asked me point blank why I didn't bring my mates to his pub and I said that we preferred our favourite pub (the Holyrood Tavern) because the beer was cheaper... so he changed the price of their flagship beer (Belhaven Best) to match the price of the beer in the Tavern, and said "There. Now you have no excuse". That probably cost them a small fortune, now I come to think of it... the joke being that his brothers gave us so many free drinks anyway, he needn't have bothered :lol:

Pubs are on such tight margins that a few that might have opened last summer didn't, and they are still closed to this day. I must admit, it makes me really sad, not least since I walk past so many great pubs every day, I've almost cried a few times walking through Ashton Lane in Glasgow.

Let's just hope they can muddle through, but I suspect that they will continue to need government help for some time to come...
 
Tired Tyres
A mate of mine used to run a pub for a brewery. He had me look for an "issue" in the books for him. (simple number problem) You would be shocked how little you make on a pint. They really do have to pack them in and sell them a lot of beer to make it work. I'm surprised they are still going concerns.
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Brewery chain pubs are up against it, but it's not a universal truth - it's just their crappy business model. If you run a decent free house you've got a much, much better chance.
 
Apparently there are 3 types of people:

1) People who get the vaccine based on normal procedures - heroic backbone of society, the shield of virtue
2) Anti-vaxxers, lazy, or nervous people who do not get the vaccine - somewhere in the middle here probably
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3) People who get the 2nd dose of vaccine at a different place than the 1st - scum of the Earth, villainy, make your children look away

It is apparently possible to get your 2nd dose at a place other than the 1st, but most providers in CO aren't offering that option and want to make sure that you know they're upset that you asked.
 
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Outspacer
US calling for a pause in J&J vaccine as 6 cases of CVST reported out of 6.8 million doses given - BBC.

Same problem as AstraZeneca blood clots. Likely the number of cases will rise somewhat as it now becomes a priority to report them.
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TJ13
US is recommending the "pause" while it investigates the potential of blood clots.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-pause-cdc-fda/index.html
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Literally, one in a million. People do not understand mathematics and ratios anymore, they follow the size of headlines compared to their fears.
 
Pupik
Literally, one in a million. People do not understand mathematics and ratios anymore, they follow the size of headlines compared to their fears.
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Also never mind that birth control has a higher likelihood of causing blood clots. Our pharmacy team is beside themselves right now over it since we have J & J product available but can't give it. Their recommendation to whatever committee they're a part of through the state is to just inform people of the potential risk and then allow them to consent to get the vaccine or not.
 
Pupik
Literally, one in a million. People do not understand mathematics and ratios anymore, they follow the size of headlines compared to their fears.
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I know! But then the masses love a lottery :lol: All I was implying with my comment was that the odds will probably end up about the same as for AstraZeneca (was it 1 in 300k?) since the underlying mechanism is likely similar.

Honestly though, the stats get really complicated for weighing these things up. If the UK completely stopped using AstraZeneca it would put back our vaccinations by months, so the harm by not vaccinating is pretty large. For the US and J&J, where the delay might only be weeks (thanks to a better supply of Pfizer and Moderna), the balance is different. Basically the risk of death by clot has to be compared with the risk from death by covid over however long the delay is, not the absolute risk of dying of covid. And when, I suppose - slowly coming out of our long lockdown we're down to deaths per day in single digits, and over-50s have had at least one jab, so some delay now isn't too much concern (we already have that though, thanks to AZ not producing enough and the EU's commandeering).

Rambling a bit, lol. Overall I'm happy with the decision made here to not use AZ (and by extension, probably, J&J) on under 30s, it's based on a better risk analysis than I could do. But my ramble suggests that the same age cut-off probably wouldn't apply to the US or anywhere else.
 
Outspacer
Basically the risk of death by clot has to be compared with the risk from death by covid over however long the delay is, not the absolute risk of dying of covid.
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I think the risk from the J & J vaccine for a clot is .0000008% while the likelihood of getting COVID is 1.3% or something like that. It was briefly mentioned in a meeting today and I wish I'd written it down.

*So my math was a bit off, it's actually way rarer to get a blood clot from J & J. You also need to be a woman between 18-49 apparently as well.

Also, you probably need to discount at least one of those cases since it was from a woman who'd just given birth, and the risk for blood clots up to six months after birth is higher than average for women.
 
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Outspacer
Basically the risk of death by clot has to be compared with the risk from death by covid over however long the delay is
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There's a whole big group of people who will just refuse to get any vaccine because they heard about scary blood clots from some of them.

It was one thing (already bad) when it was AZ. Now it's AZ and J&J, so basically all of them will give you a stroke right? [/s]
 
I had a run in with an utter 🤬 moron on YouTube (I know, I know...) who berated me for recommending vaccination, as it is something 'that can kill people'. I pointed out various things, including the fact that just about anything can kill you, like alcohol, drugs, surgery, driving, but he wasn't buying it. Apparently even a single death caused by (or even linked to) a vaccine is "totally unacceptable" :rolleyes:

I hate YouTube now. Sure, there's tonnes of great stuff on YouTube, but sadly it is also an utter cesspit of misinformation and open hatred, and there is not even any way to report false or misleading posts or content. I've had dogs abuse hurled at me, including threats and utterly disgusting comments that I've reported (as harassment, as that's the only thing that comes close to describing it) and thus far, not a single hateful or false comment has ever been removed. It's all there on permanent record, and there is no point in even trying to counter the overwhelming tide of hate and utter, wilful ignorance... it is very depressing, but I genuinely think that YouTube itself needs to be held accountable for the sheer bile that it attracts and promotes for its own financial gain.
 
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Touring Mars
I had a run in with an utter 🤬 moron on YouTube (I know, I know...) who berated me for recommending vaccination, as it is something 'that can kill people'. I pointed out various things, including the fact that just about anything can kill you, like alcohol, drugs, surgery, driving, but he wasn't buying it. Apparently even a single death caused by (or even linked to) a vaccine is "totally unacceptable" :rolleyes:

I hate YouTube now. Sure, there's tonnes of great stuff on YouTube, but sadly it is also an utter cesspit of misinformation and open hatred, and there is not even any way to report false or misleading posts or content. I've had dogs abuse hurled at me, including threats and utterly disgusting comments that I've reported (as harassment, as that's the only thing that comes close to describing it) and thus far, not a single hateful or false comment has ever been removed. It's all there on permanent record, and there is no point in even trying to counter the overwhelming tide of hate and utter, wilful ignorance... it is very depressing, but I genuinely think that YouTube itself needs to be held accountable for the sheer bile that it attracts and promotes for its own financial gain.
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youtube.png
 
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Joey D
I think the risk from the J & J vaccine for a clot is .0008% while the likelihood of getting COVID is 1.3% or something like that. It was briefly mentioned in a meeting today and I wish I'd written it down.
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6/6,800,000 = 0.00008%, although if it goes like AZ that will rise a little, perhaps 0.0002% or so.

1.3% seems an odd %, without context. Could it have been likelihood of death for someone with covid? Sounds about in the ballpark of what's been said before for that (ignoring the under-reporting of cases). Anyway, for a rough guide to what I'm getting at, let's say covid kills in 1% of cases and it would take 2 years to infect the whole population. Ignoring peaks and troughs, and age, an individual's risk of dying from covid in any given week would be about 0.01%. Bring in age and that % falls dramatically for most under-50s, well, you know the stats there. So if we're looking at, say, the risk from a two week delay in vaccination then I can see that for young people the risk could be so low that it's comparable to the risk of clot death.

Comparing % is always risky 💡
 
Danoff
There's a whole big group of people who will just refuse to get any vaccine because they heard about scary blood clots from some of them.

It was one thing (already bad) when it was AZ. Now it's AZ and J&J, so basically all of them will give you a stroke right? [/s]
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Those opinions get formed whether or not they were paused, I guess, but it doesn't help :(

All I can say is that here we've seen better than expected takeup of vaccines, and that includes groups getting their jab after the blood clot news started breaking. The same might still be true in the US - expectations started out lower thanks to the freedumb factor anyway.
 
Moderna has announced a booster shot hopefully by Autumn and then combining a flu shot with a covid shot making it an annual thing.

Pfizer is also saying the same as it will be with us forever as a virus and that we'd have to have it annual booster like the flu.

With that being said.
Do you think that with being vaccinated are you willing to continue the yearly boosters for the rest of the life?
 
TJ13
With that being said.
Do you think that with being vaccinated are you willing to continue the yearly boosters for the rest of the life?
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Honestly, for whatever is going around at the time, I'm willing to continue to get annual vaccines - and figure that's what's going to happen. I already figure that's what's going to happen with my kids. I've dragged my toddlers/young children in for vaccines every year (including flu) since they've been old enough to get them. My 5 year old has a better attitude about getting vaccinated than about 40% of Trump voters according to latest polls.


...of course she's willing to wear a mask too so...
 
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TJ13
Do you think that with being vaccinated are you willing to continue the yearly boosters for the rest of the life?
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My kids both have annual flu vaccines. Their grandparents do also. I have no problem with it at all in terms of Covid boosters if that is what's needed.
 
The latest example of how religious tradition and science are a poor mix?

COVID-19: India sees record case numbers as millions of pilgrims flock to Hindu festival

Sky News
New coronavirus infections in India have reached a record high with 184,372 cases reported in the past 24 hours alone.

The country has reported 13.5 million COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began - pushing its toll past Brazil's and making it second only to the US, though both countries have much smaller populations.

Deaths are also rising and have crossed the 170,000 mark. Even those figures, experts say, are likely to be an undercount.

The latest surge comes as millions of Hindu pilgrims gathered in the temple town of Haridwar, in Uttarakhand, to celebrate Maha Kumbh Mela.

The month-long festival had been been flagged as a superspreader event - as more than 50 million people were expected to attend.

Sanjay Gunjyal, the inspector general of police at the festival, said around 650,000 people had bathed in the river Ganges on Wednesday morning.
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I called our GP this morning to ask why my parents, but mostly my dad, haven't been vaccinated yet. With the use of some mild annoyance in my voice both of my parents were asked to get their shots at 11 this morning. AstraZeneca for both, and the second shot is the first week of June. 👍
 
It seems that I'm only asking questions instead of participating in this thread but what about illegal immigrants? How do they get vaccinated? I mean illegal immigrants all over the world, not only in the US.
 
kikie
It seems that I'm only asking questions instead of participating in this thread but what about illegal immigrants? How do they get vaccinated? I mean illegal immigrants all over the world, not only in the US.
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You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to get the vaccine.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pledged that undocumented immigrants will have equal access to COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine distribution sites. In a statement, DHS said, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will not conduct enforcement operations at or near vaccine distribution sites or clinics.”

So yes they do get vaccinated.
 
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TJ13
You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to get the vaccine.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pledged that undocumented immigrants will have equal access to COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine distribution sites. In a statement, DHS said, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will not conduct enforcement operations at or near vaccine distribution sites or clinics.”

So yes they do get vaccinated.
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I'm relieved to say the situation is similar in the UK as well.

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/30161/vaccine-amnesty-in-uk-for-undocumented-migrants

"...comin' over 'ere, takin' our jabs..." :lol:
 
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TJ13
You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to get the vaccine.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pledged that undocumented immigrants will have equal access to COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine distribution sites. In a statement, DHS said, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will not conduct enforcement operations at or near vaccine distribution sites or clinics.”

So yes they do get vaccinated.
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While undocumented immigrants can get vaccinated, there's going to be a huge hesitancy within that community. We see it with all medical care for undocumented immigrants, they don't seek medical care because they're afraid of the repercussions that they might face. Some health systems do have outreach programs though where it's understood that no questions will be asked, but they're not the norm.
 

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