Coronavirus

Good news, obviously. I assume they'll follow the test subjects for some more time, monitoring them for possible side effects, but the hopes for mass distribution of a safe and effective vaccine early 2021 are definitely justified now.
 
Absolutely. I find it extremely encouraging news, despite our government's slightly panicky looking press conference tonight, where they more or less said 'stop getting your hopes up'.

It could be months before people get the opportunity for a vaccine, it could be that this isn't as effective or as safe as thought, it could be that someone (eyes the golfing Trump suspiciously) has already bought up and ringfenced the first 600 million doses. But the fact that one of the developers has been confident enough to make this claim, and that science has come up with something in probably record time, is extremely hopeful. This is a RNA-based vaccine, too, which makes it another world first, likely to be the first such vaccine approved for use on humans. This technology has taken a huge leap forward. RNA vaccines are expected to be faster and cheaper to produce and could have a major impact on medicine worldwide.
 
Pfizer is a pretty world-class pharmaceutical company. I know everyone hates pharmaceuticals for good reasons, but they haven't taken any government money during their development work, so it's unlikely the vaccine will be fenced in. If it's fenced in then it will be because you need to have the stuff kept at -80 degrees Celcius to stay stable, which prohibits shipping to some areas of the world.
 
Is anybody anywhere actually observing social distancing? Postman just came to our door, as in practically nose to the actual door, and was really taken aback when I asked him to stand back. He took a step forward and leaned through the door instead.
 
Brigantium said:
Is anybody anywhere actually observing social distancing? Postman just came to our door, as in practically nose to the actual door, and was really taken aback when I asked him to stand back. He took a step forward and leaned through the door instead.
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You should've headbutted him. Short distance for a second, yes, but you'd have made sure he'd stay further away in the future.
 
Brigantium said:
Is anybody anywhere actually observing social distancing? Postman just came to our door, as in practically nose to the actual door, and was really taken aback when I asked him to stand back. He took a step forward and leaned through the door instead.
Click to expand...

Most people have been observing social distancing here. Notable exceptions seem to be those more at risk of dying from Covid-19!
 
Bizarre that, isn't it? I have noticed that over 50s are especially bad at it. That said the clowns who are deliberately going up to people in the street and making excuses to talk to them/cough etc are teenagers.

As of a week running up to last Friday, my estate had 47 cases of Covid. The population is less than 3,500, ffs.
 
In Poland we have over 500 deaths today. Hospitals are full. People stay in hospital rooms for hours with dead bodies because there are no one to collect them.

I spend yesterday couple hours with my sister, today she send me txt message that she totally lost sense of smell and feel little bit weak. She was keeping distance and working from home for months. If this will not get away she will be tested.

My grandfather has flu symptomps for a week now, still waiting for test results.

Things are not great in Poland. But governement is informing us about great victory over Covid and spending anti-Covid budget on flags and cars for politicians now.
 
I hope your sister and your grandfather recover very soon @Meliegree .
Here in Spain 400 people are dying everyday. I can hear the ambulance sirens from my home each 10 min.
The politicians wants to make a semi lockdown by departments or regions. with the idea of live the Christmas as always…open all the lockdowns, filling the stores and mixing family members in dinners with the consequences of a 3rd horrible wave that could collapse the sanitary system and sink the economy for a long time period. Meanwhile they are selling the news of the vaccine and some scientists are saying that our sanitary system is not ready to store and distribute all the vaccines to hospitals because of the temperature that they require.
 
One of the worst days lately for Croatia and COVID attributed deahts was a weak ago. About 40 in a day. Compared to Poland and Spain relative to size, would be 400 and 480. So it's not all roses here too.
 
In the UK, the government has decided to launch a massive testing programme to allow University students back home for Christmas. I call it the "Let's keep Tory-voting parents happy" programme (call me a cynic, but there has been nothing similar for Diwali, Eid or passover).

Boris Johnson's government is confident the whole thing is going to be a success, as highlighted by the picture from their latest rehearsal.

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And the backlash you'd get from Mr White Van Man (who apparently represents the entire population of Britain) for spoiling Christmas.

Also, Boris is now isolating. If he gets this twice it's going to give so much ammo to the anti vax camp.
 
My grandparents tested positive for Covid. Thankfully they're feeling well.

My sister also is feeling better.

In Poland, we have a drop in new cases but I think that's because we have fewer tests - for last month we were doing ~60 000 tests daily and had ~27 000 new cases. Then the government said that if we reach a 7-day average of 28 000 cases we will go into full lockdown. Then they started to do 40k - 45k tests daily and said on TV that their strategy of fighting covid is working because we have less than 25 000 new cases now so we can open everything again.

But the number of deaths is rising, % of positive cases vs. # of tests is rising (we had 25% detection rate, now we're around 46%).
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
Possibly because they don't align with university holidays?
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True to a certain extent: the "Let's keep Tory-voting parents and Mr White Van Man happy" programme affects some weeks of term, with all taught content having to be moved online. Students would be travelling back home more than 2 weeks before Christmas and I bet that would happen regardless of the outcome of the tests.

On a related note, Passover and Eid did align with University holidays in 2020 (the latter was outside of term time, while the former was in the middle of the spring break). Both were in the middle of lockdown though.

For Diwali they can probably also use the same excuse.

That being said, the Tories might be working on a similar programme for these other religious festivities in 2021...
 
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