@Arvia in the school of my kids it's "Mask everywhere including outside during break but not during classes". Classes are as full as normal, no chance to keep the required minimum distance. And to only meet people of one other household during free time is as far as I know government regulation for whole Germany currently.
The wide variety of regulations is certainly not helpful. I must have assumed the regional rules concerning masks were general ones. It's hard to keep track.
I see what you mean about only one household, that's for meetings in public places. I was thinking of kids meeting at home.
@Arvia wait, what - we can meet with more than one household if we stay indoors - ok, I give up, I don't understand the logic behind the Lockdown rules any more. This basically means the kids can't play and run outside with more than one friend but gathering indoors is ok. Nope, don't get it.
@Arvia wait, what - we can meet with more than one household if we stay indoors - ok, I give up, I don't understand the logic behind the Lockdown rules any more. This basically means the kids can't play and run outside with more than one friend but gathering indoors is ok. Nope, don't get it.
@jastey, I don't understand it, either. I guess it's because more is required before the government can order people what to do in their own homes (and especially to control those orders), as opposed to public places.
It occurs to me that it is now crystal clear (at least from the standpoint of the US) that the response to COVID-19 means the ongoing fight against climate change is completely, utterly hopeless.
It occurs to me that it is now crystal clear (at least from the standpoint of the US) that the response to COVID-19 means the ongoing fight against climate change is completely, utterly hopeless.
Sadly I came to that conclusion a few years ago. Humans as a rule like to wait until the very last second before screaming "OMG, it's an emergency!" and then try to slap together a bandaid solution in a panic. I take some consolation in the fact that this will not be the first time that Earth has undergone mass extinctions and sweeping climate and landscape changes. A lot of flora and fauna will no doubt die, but even bigger mass extinctions have happened in Earth's history anyway, and life ultimately adapted and went on to thrive. Earth itself will survive this, as it has so many times before. Humanity too will probably survive; we're too intelligent and adaptable to die out completely. But a LOT of people are going to die, and for them, I grieve. Still, it will work to reduce humanity's numbers back down to a manageable level. Nature ALWAYS finds a balance, in the end. The solution may just not be to our liking.
It worries me that our responses to major crises tend to be arguments between "this will kill lots of people" and "it won't completely eradicate all life on earth," as if the latter made the crisis too small to tackle.
It worries me that our responses to major crises tend to be arguments between "this will kill lots of people" and "it won't completely eradicate all life on earth," as if the latter made the crisis too small to tackle.
People don't generally like being told what to do. The attitude is worse in Western society right now (especially the US) but they don't get a pass in the East. I don't think many Westerners are drinking rhino-horn tea so they can get it up. They use the blue pill over here...
As today is the anniversary of Freddy Mercury's death and covid is still raging I came up with this pastiche of a section of Queen's "We Will Rock You" -
No mask on your face
You big disgrace
Spreading your germs
All over the place
Situation here in the UK reminds me of this section from the Hawkwind song "Right to Decide" -
Life's a no-go area it's so obscene
You can't do this, you can't do that
You can't go forward and you can't go back
You can't do this, you can't do that
You can't go forward and you can't go back
Re. William Shakespear. It gets better. This particular WS lives in the county of Warwickshire which is the county that has as its main attraction the world famous town of Stratford Upon Avon. The home of the Elizabethan playwright of the same name.
Can anyone convince me of the wisdom of vaccinating old people in care homes before, say, teachers?
@bleusteel total numbers of deaths so far in comparison betwen teachers and old people in care houses, I would say. At least I am not aware of xx deaths of teachers per school due an internal outbreak.
Can anyone convince me of the wisdom of vaccinating old people in care homes before, say, teachers?
Can anyone convince me of the wisdom of vaccinating our front-line people first with rushed vaccines? What if, God forbid, it turns out something goes awry with one of them. We'd be up Shit Creek if our healthcare people were the first ones affected...
Can anyone convince me of the wisdom of vaccinating old people in care homes before, say, teachers?
There are 3 sets of criteria that have been discussed for who gets the vaccine first.
- most countries are giving the highest priority to people at the most risk from the virus - as risk increases so much with age, this type of priority is mainly driven by age and not other health conditions.
- most countries are also giving a high priority to those deemed to be in essential occupations. That will include health, but teachers, police, army and others have also been identified in some places.
- a third set of criteria would be to target those at greatest risk of spreading the virus, rather than those most at risk from catching it (and your question may have this in mind). There are theoretical benefits from this approach as it allows you to achieve effective herd immunity at lower levels of protected people (so would potentially be particularly suitable for countries expecting limited stocks of vaccines). However, this approach doesn't seem to be being used much. That might reflect the potential difficulty of identifying this group, or the perceived unfairness of protecting people who bear little personal risk.
Thank you for your replies. I’m still not convinced that vaccinating people with such limited usefulness is making the best use of a scarce resource. Many of them could be dead within a year anyway while schools and businesses remain closed indefinitely. Speaking mainly for the USA, of course. Our social safety net isn’t as robust as Europe/Canada.
@Balrog99 Maybe the mRNA treatment will one day cure cancer. Or it could make tomorrow’s super bug that wipes out humanity. Fun with science.
Thank you for your replies. I’m still not convinced that vaccinating people with such limited usefulness is making the best use of a scarce resource. Many of them could be dead within a year anyway while schools and businesses remain closed indefinitely. Speaking mainly for the USA, of course. Our social safety net isn’t as robust as Europe/Canada.
Balrog99 Maybe the mRNA treatment will one day cure cancer. Or it could make tomorrow’s super bug that wipes out humanity. Fun with science.
When success is measured with statistics, lowering the death rate is more important than immunizing those ‘deemed’ worthy.
Thank you for your replies. I’m still not convinced that vaccinating people with such limited usefulness is making the best use of a scarce resource. Many of them could be dead within a year anyway while schools and businesses remain closed indefinitely. Speaking mainly for the USA, of course. Our social safety net isn’t as robust as Europe/Canada.
Balrog99 Maybe the mRNA treatment will one day cure cancer. Or it could make tomorrow’s super bug that wipes out humanity. Fun with science.
When success is measured with statistics, lowering the death rate is more important than immunizing those ‘deemed’ worthy.
Lowering the death rate is ALWAYS more important than deeming some people more or less "worthy" than others.
Thank you for your replies. I’m still not convinced that vaccinating people with such limited usefulness is making the best use of a scarce resource. Many of them could be dead within a year anyway while schools and businesses remain closed indefinitely. Speaking mainly for the USA, of course. Our social safety net isn’t as robust as Europe/Canada.
@Balrog99 Maybe the mRNA treatment will one day cure cancer. Or it could make tomorrow’s super bug that wipes out humanity. Fun with science.
I totally agree. Think we should get healthcare workers including those that would bring covid to care homes but not necessarily the care home elderly themselves so high on the priority. There's younger people with compromised immune systems, cops, firefighters, and things like that I'd put ahead. To help elderly care home people just vaccinate nurses and doctors. Limit visitation until visitors get vaccinated.
Thank you for your replies. I’m still not convinced that vaccinating people with such limited usefulness is making the best use of a scarce resource. Many of them could be dead within a year anyway while schools and businesses remain closed indefinitely. Speaking mainly for the USA, of course. Our social safety net isn’t as robust as Europe/Canada.
Balrog99 Maybe the mRNA treatment will one day cure cancer. Or it could make tomorrow’s super bug that wipes out humanity. Fun with science.
When success is measured with statistics, lowering the death rate is more important than immunizing those ‘deemed’ worthy.
Lowering the death rate is ALWAYS more important than deeming some people more or less "worthy" than others.
Well, if we’re talking about the US, I wouldn’t be surprised if they charged for the vaccine. Everyone will get it, but those that can afford to pay will get it first.
It’s why I think Trump wants the vaccine by the end of the year, so he can push this and get one of his cronies to roll out the program to profit off of it. If he can’t get it by the end of the year, he and his administration is going to set up as many roadblocks as possible to make it look like Biden is fumbling the roll out.
Thank you for your replies. I’m still not convinced that vaccinating people with such limited usefulness is making the best use of a scarce resource. Many of them could be dead within a year anyway while schools and businesses remain closed indefinitely. Speaking mainly for the USA, of course. Our social safety net isn’t as robust as Europe/Canada.
Balrog99 Maybe the mRNA treatment will one day cure cancer. Or it could make tomorrow’s super bug that wipes out humanity. Fun with science.
When success is measured with statistics, lowering the death rate is more important than immunizing those ‘deemed’ worthy.
Lowering the death rate is ALWAYS more important than deeming some people more or less "worthy" than others.
Well, if we’re talking about the US, I wouldn’t be surprised if they charged for the vaccine. Everyone will get it, but those that can afford to pay will get it first.
It’s why I think Trump wants the vaccine by the end of the year, so he can push this and get one of his cronies to roll out the program to profit off of it. If he can’t get it by the end of the year, he and his administration is going to set up as many roadblocks as possible to make it look like Biden is fumbling the roll out.
"Vaccine doses purchased with U.S. taxpayer dollars will be given to the American people at no cost. However, vaccination providers will be able to charge an administration fee for giving the shot to someone."
Comments
The wide variety of regulations is certainly not helpful. I must have assumed the regional rules concerning masks were general ones. It's hard to keep track.
I see what you mean about only one household, that's for meetings in public places. I was thinking of kids meeting at home.
@jastey, I don't understand it, either. I guess it's because more is required before the government can order people what to do in their own homes (and especially to control those orders), as opposed to public places.
Sadly I came to that conclusion a few years ago. Humans as a rule like to wait until the very last second before screaming "OMG, it's an emergency!" and then try to slap together a bandaid solution in a panic. I take some consolation in the fact that this will not be the first time that Earth has undergone mass extinctions and sweeping climate and landscape changes. A lot of flora and fauna will no doubt die, but even bigger mass extinctions have happened in Earth's history anyway, and life ultimately adapted and went on to thrive. Earth itself will survive this, as it has so many times before. Humanity too will probably survive; we're too intelligent and adaptable to die out completely. But a LOT of people are going to die, and for them, I grieve. Still, it will work to reduce humanity's numbers back down to a manageable level. Nature ALWAYS finds a balance, in the end. The solution may just not be to our liking.
People don't generally like being told what to do. The attitude is worse in Western society right now (especially the US) but they don't get a pass in the East. I don't think many Westerners are drinking rhino-horn tea so they can get it up. They use the blue pill over here...
"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
Is that where they put all the toilet paper?
TR
TR
TR
TR
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-vaccine-uk-coronavirus-b1767802.html
and the second person to get the jab was........ William Shakespeare!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/covid-vaccine-william-shakespeare-second-person-b1767857.html
I rather like the newspaper headline for that: "Taming of the flu".
TR
@bleusteel total numbers of deaths so far in comparison betwen teachers and old people in care houses, I would say. At least I am not aware of xx deaths of teachers per school due an internal outbreak.
Can anyone convince me of the wisdom of vaccinating our front-line people first with rushed vaccines? What if, God forbid, it turns out something goes awry with one of them. We'd be up Shit Creek if our healthcare people were the first ones affected...
The list of priorities and the reasoning behind them is here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/priority-groups-for-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-advice-from-the-jcvi-2-december-2020/priority-groups-for-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-advice-from-the-jcvi-2-december-2020
There are 3 sets of criteria that have been discussed for who gets the vaccine first.
- most countries are giving the highest priority to people at the most risk from the virus - as risk increases so much with age, this type of priority is mainly driven by age and not other health conditions.
- most countries are also giving a high priority to those deemed to be in essential occupations. That will include health, but teachers, police, army and others have also been identified in some places.
- a third set of criteria would be to target those at greatest risk of spreading the virus, rather than those most at risk from catching it (and your question may have this in mind). There are theoretical benefits from this approach as it allows you to achieve effective herd immunity at lower levels of protected people (so would potentially be particularly suitable for countries expecting limited stocks of vaccines). However, this approach doesn't seem to be being used much. That might reflect the potential difficulty of identifying this group, or the perceived unfairness of protecting people who bear little personal risk.
Thank you for your replies. I’m still not convinced that vaccinating people with such limited usefulness is making the best use of a scarce resource. Many of them could be dead within a year anyway while schools and businesses remain closed indefinitely. Speaking mainly for the USA, of course. Our social safety net isn’t as robust as Europe/Canada.
@Balrog99 Maybe the mRNA treatment will one day cure cancer. Or it could make tomorrow’s super bug that wipes out humanity. Fun with science.
When success is measured with statistics, lowering the death rate is more important than immunizing those ‘deemed’ worthy.
Lowering the death rate is ALWAYS more important than deeming some people more or less "worthy" than others.
I totally agree. Think we should get healthcare workers including those that would bring covid to care homes but not necessarily the care home elderly themselves so high on the priority. There's younger people with compromised immune systems, cops, firefighters, and things like that I'd put ahead. To help elderly care home people just vaccinate nurses and doctors. Limit visitation until visitors get vaccinated.
Well, if we’re talking about the US, I wouldn’t be surprised if they charged for the vaccine. Everyone will get it, but those that can afford to pay will get it first.
It’s why I think Trump wants the vaccine by the end of the year, so he can push this and get one of his cronies to roll out the program to profit off of it. If he can’t get it by the end of the year, he and his administration is going to set up as many roadblocks as possible to make it look like Biden is fumbling the roll out.
"Vaccine doses purchased with U.S. taxpayer dollars will be given to the American people at no cost. However, vaccination providers will be able to charge an administration fee for giving the shot to someone."
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html#:~:text=Vaccine doses purchased with US,the shot to someone.
Free vaccine, $700 for someone to poke you! USA, USA, USA...