The Final FUCKDOWN

[olliebean]

The UK-exclusive AY.4.2 variant, a Delta variant sub-lineage, has been linked to a 10% rise in transmissibility and is around 7% of those sequenced here currently. This is a truly great country.

I knew we could do it! World beating!

[peanutbutter]

I've had periods where I've wanted to get flu so I can have some free time off so I can see me not keeping up with my covid boosters in years to come.

Or just get the flu shot and pretend you didn't so you can take a couple of extra days off sick regardless?

[Milo]

Nah, that would be dishonest.

[MojoJojo]

Well, all the numbers are going the wrong way. I have a small hope they might start falling again once it's finished working it's way through the schools but we're a bit fucked if it doesn't.

[Pinball]

Numbers are going up, there is a new variant, and the only message we're getting is- everything fine, back to the office, normality is resumed. The UK is stupid, and this is why our cases are so high (new cases currently second only to the US).

Anyone would think a banker was our health minister, in which case it's more evil than stupid.

[jamiefairlie]

People are selfish and stupid, leaders are evil.

[Fambo Number Mive]

The UK media seem to be largely ignoring this new variant as well, I imagine most people don't know.

It's disgusting how complicit most of the media are in our government's callous response to the pandemic. I remember there was one journalist who sent a really angry tweet about people who were calling for the UK to adopt a response like New Zealand.

With a few exceptions, the UK media is just client journalism.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Meanwhile the Tories continue to watch the NHS implode and do nothing

Doctors are warning that accident and emergency departments are on the "edge of a precipice", with patients forced to wait in ambulances for up to 11 hours outside hospitals.

Paramedics across Britain have reported queues of up to 20 ambulances waiting outside hospitals to transfer patients into emergency departments operating at full capacity. Every ambulance service in the country is now at the highest level of alert, the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) said this weekend.

Martin Flaherty, the organisation's managing director, said: "[The association] remains extremely concerned about the unprecedented levels of hospital handover delays which are occurring across the UK."

...Mark Wibberley, a senior emergency medical technician with East of England ambulance service and Unison Norfolk County lead, said: "The waits can be as long as six hours to hand over patients. It's not acceptable." Darlington Memorial Hospital reportedly had queues of up to 15 ambulances this month with crews waiting hours to transfer patients.

Dr Ian Higginson, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: "The last thing you want when you're sick, frightened or in distress is to be waiting in an ambulance outside an emergency department. There has been a failure in the NHS to deal with this chronic problem. I am very worried these delays will get worse without effective planning on how to deal with it. It feels like we are on the edge of a precipice in terms of the quality of care we can provide for our patients."

NHS figures published last week revealed that 2.1 million people attended A&E last month, the highest figure ever recorded in September. There were 946,707 answered calls for an ambulance to 999 last month, compared with 713,975 in September 2020, an increase of more than 30%.

Figures released to the Observer from the AACE reveal the hours lost to ambulance services due to hospital handover delays of more than an hour had increased from 4,700 hours in April 2021 to more than 35,000 hours last month. Handover delays can worsen ambulance response times, which in England are now the longest since the data was first collected in April 2018...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/16/ae-crisis-leaves-patients-waiting-in-ambulances-outside-hospitals-for-11-hours

[steveh]

The UK media seem to be largely ignoring this new variant as well, I imagine most people don't know.

They did though go overboard with scare stories on variants earlier this year that weren't warranted.

This thread pulls the evidence together on why the UK numbers are so bad: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1449801652207239176.

[jamiefairlie]

They did though go overboard with scare stories on variants earlier this year that weren't warranted.

This thread pulls the evidence together on why the UK numbers are so bad: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1449801652207239176.

So it's because of reckless behaviour by the population encouraged by an evil government.  Who'd have thought eh.

[Alberon]

Totally unscientific, I know, but the number of people I personally know who has caught covid in the last eighteen months was only three definite and one possible. Just in the last week my cousin who is in her seventies and her husband have caught it (probably from her job as a primary school assistant) though thankfully not badly and now my sister-in-law and my nephew have come down with it as well.

[Pinball]

49,000 cases yesterday, so should go over 50,000 today. And if you include the 100s of thousands of missing results from the Wolverhampton lab failure, we've probably been over 50,000 already. I think it's kicking off again now. As what point will our Evil Banker Health Minister do something?

[MojoJojo]

When patient numbers reach 17000 maybe? Although probably higher as the trajectories are different to last November

[Old Thrashbarg]

On a more positive note, the growth rate in cases for the over-80s has been declining and absolute cases for them will likely start declining in the next couple of days. Which seems most likely to be as a result of the effects of the booster jabs. Speeding up the rollout of those will likely have a massive impact on how winter goes.

[Milo]

We're now on boosters for the load vs vaccinating the kids. We need both.

[poo]

Christmas Fuckdown

[Ferris]

Christmas Fuckdown

Alternative titles:

- Merry Fuckdown!
- Brandy lung butter
- Mistletoe and DEATH

[Cold Meat Platter]

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Christmas Fuckdown's coming to town

[Cuellar]

On a more positive note, the growth rate in cases for the over-80s has been declining and absolute cases for them will likely start declining in the next couple of days. Which seems most likely to be as a result of the effects of the booster jabs. Speeding up the rollout of those will likely have a massive impact on how winter goes.

This is because all the over 80s are now beastly dead

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/19/fears-grow-in-england-over-rise-of-new-covid-delta-variant

the message needs to be, let's stop worrying about mutations and worry about the fact we have uncontrolled transmission in the UK."

[katzenjammer]

Alternative titles:

- Merry Fuckdown!
- Brandy lung butter
- Mistletoe and DEATH

(Not) Driving home for Covid

[Huxleys Babkins]

Baby it's cold outside (your body) (because you're dead)

[Chedney Honks]

AY4.2 in a Manger

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Nursing Home For Christmas (I can't wait to see those corpses)

[Fambo Number Mive]

Ministers making Plan C (another lockdown) more likely by ruling out Plan B ( the kind of sensible restrictions that countries like France and Germany, more sensible countries with lower cases, hospitalisations and deaths have)

In response to the NHS Confederation comments, UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng says the government does not "feel that it's the time for Plan B right now"

[steveh]

The UK-exclusive AY.4.2 variant, a Delta variant sub-lineage, has been linked to a 10% rise in transmissibility and is around 7% of those sequenced here currently. This is a truly great country.

The increase in transmissibility for AY.4.2 over Delta is now being suggested as around 2% with its growth due to the early pattern of distribution and a "technical artefact of sequencing". 2% may not be enough for it to become more dominant. Virologists still think there's enough evolutionary space for other transmissibility increases though and with UK cases running higher than elsewhere it makes it more likely they would emerge here.

[Fambo Number Mive]

The UK is a petri dish for new variants, another way we are screwing over the world.

The government pretend they are following the science but NHS leaders are telling them to move to Plan B, and they ignore them.

Meanwhile a major inquiry report in Brazil says Bolsonaro should be charged with  crimes against humanity, forging documents and incitement to crime over his handling of the COVID 19 pandemic in Brazil:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-58976197

[MojoJojo]

We're now on boosters for the load(sic. old) vs vaccinating the kids. We need both.

I really don't understand what's happening with kid vaccines - I don't think supply is limited, just seems to be a lack of interest. But if we have to choose - well these are the covid deaths by age for the 12 February - 8 October, 2021 - so most cases are in the young, and vaccination rates are high amongst the elderly:

Code Select Expand


Under 1 year      4
1 to 14           9
15 to 24         52
25 to 44        665
45 to 54       1340
55 to 64       3122
65 to 74       5072
75 to 84       7962
85+            9979


[steveh]

I think it was said that the rollout for children in England is being done as part of the annual flu vaccinations, rather than being accelerated. There have also been reports of vaccination days at schools being postponed because of insufficient nurses to do them.

[SpiderChrist]

Javid warns of 100,000 cases a day, NHS says it's on the verge of a crisis, but

Javid is asked whether he is ignoring the principal lesson from last year – that waiting to take measures means having to take harsher ones later.

He says the government can play a part but insists that people need to take action themselves, such as getting jabs, taking tests and isolating when necessary. This is "plan A", he says. We're not at that point yet, he adds, referring to the stricter measures associated with "plan B".