Is next year a write off already?

[redefined_cycles]

*ammendement

I meant 'wildlife markets' sorry

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/sc ... -need-know

[Bearbonesnorm]

'm also assuming that the "write off" referred to in the OP refers to events, gigs and other organised activities. That's the way I read it and the intent I took from it. I don't think anyone has suggested that we'll be locked indoors for 12 months.

That's exactly what I meant Colin - all those days / nights / weekends that would generally break the year up for us.

[composite]

London-Edinburgh-London has been pushed to 2022 now which was going to be one of my big ones for next year. LEJOG1400 has been rescheduled from 2020 to 2021 but I have no idea if that will end up happening. I suppose we had thought about trying to do the trip to Canada that was cancelled this year but we hadn't really set any hopes yet on that really happening. Other than that I didn't really have many plans already for next year so I guess it's just rolling with it and finding things to do as the situation unfolds further.

[In Reverse]

No working vaccine AVAILABLE then. And when it is available it needs to be given to people, here in lies the problem, that will take a LONG time. And InReverse it will need a lot of people to have had it for it to work - upwards to 80% of the population.

It won't. You're confusing achieving population-wide herd immunity with what will be needed to return to a relative normality. For the overwhelming majority of people C19 is a mild/non-symptomatic illness. Those people don't need to be vaccinated to return to relative normality, all we need to do is ensure that loads of people aren't dying and the NHS isn't overrun - that means vaccinating the most at-risk and frontline health/social care workers. It's very possible that most of us won't get vaccinated at all until we reach 65.

You're overstating the risk of anti-vax nutjobs. They are a negligible number.

[lune ranger]

You're overstating the risk of anti-vax nutjobs. They are a negligible number.

Negligible number, loud voice. Example: primary school in Exeter is not providing flu vac this year due to small but vociferous parent group complaining.
You are assuming NHS staff will be willing to take a vaccine. As part of my job I am responsible for overseeing flu vaccination inmy department in a large district hospital.
Uptake of the vaccine across frontline workers in the whole NHS (England) has only been 62.2 to 74.3% from 2015- 2019. Uptake of the new and unknown swine flu vaccine was closer to 50% Cleaners and OT’s have highest uptake. Doctors worst.
It takes a hard push and months of work to get people onboard. People who understand what flu actually is.
If a large proportion of the population does not accept the vaccine the situation will not change quickly.
The challenge of producing a vaccine in sufficient quantities, it’s distribution and administration is immense.
If anything changes re social distancing and lock down before next summer, it won’t be due to a vaccine

[Chew]

I was going watching a band this summer but it was cancelled and rescheduled for next June. Today I received an email telling me that due to the ongoing covid situation, it's now cancelled again and penciled in for Nov 2021. Can't help but think next year is already written off before it's begun.

I doubt we'll have 2019 levels of normality until Spring 2022.

Hopefully some larger events next year, but not pinning my hopes on anything.

Like Greg, lots of other things to focus on next year that would be different from a normal year.
Not idea, but sometimes a change is good.
Its better to focus on the stuff you can still do, rather than the stuff you cant.

[Cheeky Monkey]

Lets not forget that one of the biggest components in infection prevention is good hygiene (go figure... ask Dave B) and handwashing technique. So we really must get used to challenging them folk that have a wee or poo in public toilets and conveniently forget to wash them hands. I've been trying for years without much joy but hopefully people will now see things different.

...

I believe that when the big push on hand hygiene took place early in the lockdown / first response an interesting side-effect was a substantial reduction in hospital-based infections. The working theory was that there was a "re-invigoration" of hygiene amongst health care workers etc. Sometimes it's those closest to / most frequently exposed to stuff that become quite blase. Human nature, it's a bitch

I miss "normality" and am looking forward to some of life going back to something approaching it at some point in 6 to 12 months, I hope. I won't deny I'm rather bored and missing a bunch of things I'd have done if it weren't for restrictions. My fitness regime took a kicking with some organised stuff being cancelled and not yet re-starting plus injury so I'm not quite as happy as Greg Still grateful no-one I know has suffered badly from it so not ungrateful.

Stay safe and well folks

[GregMay]

Don't worry I'm not that happy, just a long term stoic.

[Lazarus]

You are assuming NHS staff will be willing to take a vaccine

You are assuming they will treat a covid vaccine like a flu vaccine and i dont think this is likely
I can get the flu vaccine at work but I dont always do it
why
1) unlikely to kill me
2) no guarantee its the correct strain /will work

Now i dont want to generalise from a sample size of one but i see no reason to assume people will treat them the same.

[Cheeky Monkey]

Don't worry I'm not that happy, just a long term stoic.

Awww. Hug

[GregMay]

MAINTAIN 2m distance you fool!!!

[lune ranger]

I can get the flu vaccine at work but I dont always do it
why
1) unlikely to kill me
2) no guarantee its the correct strain /will work

Now i dont want to generalise from a sample size of one but i see no reason to assume people will treat them the same.

Could easily say the same for COVID vaccine.
I get the flu vaccine every year and have every other vaccine made available to me and my family. However if someone rocks up with a box of CoVID vaccine tomorrow at work I won’t just be sticking my arm out without asking questions. I don’t think I’m alone on this.
In the general public as well as anti vaccine folk there are those who are ambivalent, folk with ethical objections ((some) vegans if animal excipients are used) religions objections (animal excipients) and those who the system doesn’t cater for well eg. migrants.

[slarge]

Well I'm looking forward to next year - can't be much worse than this year can it?

[The Cumbrian]

Well I'm looking forward to next year - can't be much worse than this year can it?

You do realise that you've doomed us now, don't you?

[redefined_cycles]

I can get the flu vaccine at work but I dont always do it
why
1) unlikely to kill me
2) no guarantee its the correct strain /will work

Now i dont want to generalise from a sample size of one but i see no reason to assume people will treat them the same.

Could easily say the same for COVID vaccine.
I get the flu vaccine every year and have every other vaccine made available to me and my family. However if someone rocks up with a box of CoVID vaccine tomorrow at work I won’t just be sticking my arm out without asking questions. I don’t think I’m alone on this.
In the general public as well as anti vaccine folk there are those who are ambivalent, folk with ethical objections ((some) vegans if animal excipients are used) religions objections (animal excipients) and those who the system doesn’t cater for well eg. migrants.

Dont forget aswell, that the govt has reduced the amount of loopholes the pharmaceutical companies need to get through, in bringing a vaccine forward. That would/should get peoples backs up in the first place as (contrary to popular opinion) the number 1 objectives of bigPharma is to make money. They're businesses afterall with directors Jags to feed (just saying... coming as someone who regularly talks people into taking some sort of medicine for some reason or another)...

[tobasco]

Recent articles in scientific journals have suggested we’ve been fortunate with C19 not having mutated much so far, and going on to say that if vaccine roll out is not managed it could lead to pressure for mutations to develop.

[Lazarus]

Could easily say the same for COVID vaccine.

Whilst the first point MAY be true re flu its a lot less certain - I am fairly sure the number of say health professionals or bus drivers who die from flu is somewhat lower than with covid .Its not really true to say the risk of death from Covid is comparable with flu.

the second pont wrong strain you canot say that at all with the covid vaccine[currently] as their are not different strains - in the sense flu has different strains - at least so far

I do agree, given the timescales, that there will be doubts amongst rational folk [non anti vaxxers] that dont exist with other vaccines.
I suspect you will see some major differences between individulaistic societies - us and the US for example- and more community minded /trustful of government /deferential ones and uptake and therefore outcomes.I willbe surprised if there is no legal force applied r "inducements" like you cannot do x unless vaccinated for example [ go on holiday, attend sporting events/festivals , go to the pub etc ]

[lune ranger]

2) no guarantee right strain/will work

‘Will work’ is the pertinent point there.
The quicker the vaccine is introduced the less testing will have taken place so there will be less guarantee of efficacy.
One vaccine is unlikely to work for all people. For example flu vaccine is offered in variations for children, adults and older adults.
I worry about the level of jingoism, one upmanship and undue haste in the process up to this point. It seems like a race to get a vaccine to MARKET, not to get the situation under proper control.
A hard and early lockdown weeks ago may have salvaged next year but that ship has probably sailed. A vaccine when available will help but it’s not a magic solution.

[Lazarus]

A working vaccine really is a magic bullet and the trials can easily say whether it affords "immunity" [ though not for how long] but the long term [side] affects, if any , may be questionable- not least because there wont have been any long term studies [hence the concerns]
Either way there is a real issue as those normally " pro" vaccine have doubts they would not normally have and therefore uptake will be affected.
And that is before we get to the anti science lot

[Richard G]

If you're looking for a full return to normality then yes, 2022 is likely your best bet... however, there will be much that can return to some semblance of normality.

Just, you know, probably not going around licking people's faces and suchlike.

[faustus]

I don't have much confidence in a vaccine being the silver bullet the government clearly wants it to be. It's a mess that requires a great deal of work and good management to slowly overcome, and based on current and historic government performance, my confidence is very low that they will achieve even a semblance of what is needed. Especially with the ludicrousness of Brexit and it's unwanted consequences added to the mix.

Don't know about next year, but the next two weeks are a write-off in our house, as someone in my toddlers nursery bubble tested positive so he has to self-isolate. Found it bizarre that as parents we don't need to isolate, but we will pretty much do so accept for exercise alone. oh, and I now have to work at home with two young kids in the room and kind of parent at the same time

[In Reverse]

You're overstating the risk of anti-vax nutjobs. They are a negligible number.

Negligible number, loud voice. Example: primary school in Exeter is not providing flu vac this year due to small but vociferous parent group complaining.
You are assuming NHS staff will be willing to take a vaccine. As part of my job I am responsible for overseeing flu vaccination inmy department in a large district hospital.
Uptake of the vaccine across frontline workers in the whole NHS (England) has only been 62.2 to 74.3% from 2015- 2019. Uptake of the new and unknown swine flu vaccine was closer to 50% Cleaners and OT’s have highest uptake. Doctors worst.
It takes a hard push and months of work to get people onboard. People who understand what flu actually is.
If a large proportion of the population does not accept the vaccine the situation will not change quickly.
The challenge of producing a vaccine in sufficient quantities, it’s distribution and administration is immense.
If anything changes re social distancing and lock down before next summer, it won’t be due to a vaccine

Again I'd say you're overstating the size of the challenges of what's required to return to a relative normality. Happy to disagree though.

[lune ranger]

Again I'd say you're overstating the size of the challenges of what's required to return to a relative normality. Happy to disagree though.

Totally, no need to fall out on this.
But you have seen whose running this country haven’t you....

[RIP]

I'm having a fairly uncharacteristic glass-3/4-empty phase at the moment. This second wave was entirely predictable but many are treating it as a giant surprise, including the government, so it doesn't bode well for the third and fourth ones next year. The first lockdown was something a bit different, for a few people even a bit of a lark. Now it's not fun and not interesting, least of all for those who don't make it out the other side.

Maybe it'll pan out like Spanish Flu and 'die out' after a few years and we can pick up the pieces. Vaccine? Hmm. We obviously have far better science to hand these days but in the meantime you have long-Covid and a lot of economic fallout to deal with as well. The planet, well the 'Western world' at least, was already drowning in a sea of debt before this kicked off, and we're printing a whole lot more funny money to prop things up in the short term. I wouldn't like to be a youngster faced with paying that lot off, along with all the rest such as student debt, PFI, inflated housing costs, environmental clean-up, etc, at the same time as trying to recover from this pandemic. We've also pawned a lot of our infrastructure, social services and economy over the past few decades which makes it hard to keep society functioning while we get through this. There's a long slow grind ahead there.

Still, 100 years ago we had the destruction of WW1 at the same time as Spanish Flu and here we all are, so maybe it all sorts itself out and you just have to hope you come out the other side as one of the lucky ones.

Good grief Reg, get a grip, chin up, have a Tunnock's and go for a ride!

[Richard G]

I supposedly have Cabin Fever in Sweden at the end of April. Wouldn't be surprised if that was cancelled again.

Next after that would be the Welsh Ride Thing, which I assume would probably go ahead in a heavily modified format again (obviously assuming no full on lockdowns). Supposedly Italy in June... who knows on that.

I'm having a fairly uncharacteristic glass-3/4-empty phase at the moment. This second wave was entirely predictable but many are treating it as a giant surprise, including the government, so it doesn't bode well for the third and fourth ones next year. The first lockdown was something a bit different, for a few people even a bit of a lark.

Speaking as someone that's in an actual lockdown rather than that half arsed "Tier X" sh*t, it's not that bad. I'd actually prefer doing these occasionally and know that the virus is actually being knocked back rather than only going to pubs that serve food and only meeting three friends, outside on the 6th week of Junemas (which seems to be having very little effect).