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Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

Peter wrote:

What this would tell somebody with an engineering education is that the course of an epidemic is affected by some factors which are not [yet] understood.

Not understood or not measured! E.g. with lockdowns: We measure quite well what formal lockdown measures are set in place but we do by far not as well measure if or to what extend people comply with these measures.
A Country with comparatively less strict lockdown regulations where people simply stay at home and do not see each other (as a Texas friend told me: “Others call it social distancing – we call it life! The next neighbors live 15 miles away…”) should actually do much better than a country with very strict rules nobody follows…

Silvaire wrote:

The hospitals here just postponed elective or non-critical surgeries and did fine.

I would be very careful with these terms! “non-critical” or “elective” typically refers to a timeframe of a couple of day or weeks – not to months or years. A hip replacement is a non critical surgery (in most situations) but you really do not want to wait for it for a year! (Ok, if you live in the UK and used to NHS waiting times … ;—))

Germany

Peter wrote:

Dear Mr
You have been invited to book your COVID-19 vaccinations. Prompt booking via the link is advised as there are only a few appointments available at present.
Please click on the link…

Booked for 1 week from now.

How do they know your email address? Or is it done by letter? Does it work from your tax database? Or your health records? Is everyone registered with the NHS?

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Regarding lockdowns, I think there is some element of self regulation in the system. When numbers spiral, a lot of people get scared and start to limit their social interactions. Then as infections come down, they start to venture out again.

This is visible with the amount of traffic on the roads. We’ve been in a high state of lockdown since early December with the exception of a week over Christmas. We can’t travel beyond 5km of home unless it’s an essential reason.

People largely ignored it before Christmas, then all hell let loose over Christmas once the lockdown was removed. So much so that the government has to reimpose lockdown only a week after removing it. For about a week we had the highest per capita infection rates in the world.

But once the numbers sky rocketed over Christmas, everyone stayed home. Now that the infection numbers are coming down again, the traffic levels are increasing, even though there have been no changes in the lockdown measures, or enforcement. It seems people are regulating the curve themselves.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

My US healthcare provider’s app on my phone will send me an automated notification when I’m eligible for vaccination by them. After that I can schedule on the app, online or by phone, including being told which vaccine is being offered. If I don’t like what’s offered and don’t take them up on the offer nobody cares. I’m free to shop around and go anywhere I want, for any vaccine that’s available to me, anywhere.

By chance an older coworker and I like the same healthcare chain and therefore use the same phone app, so I watch his experience with interest. He drove 40 miles twice to get the Moderna vaccine versus taking them up on the offer of Pfizer. I think I’d prefer Pfizer myself based on what I’ve read, and that’s what my parents had. They’re really old, not so big on iPhone apps so their doctors office called them when appropriate.

How do they know your email address? Or is it done by letter? Does it work from your tax database? Or your health records?

This was SMS. The local GP has this on their system.

I was out on my bike so forwarded it to Justine who booked it immediately

Is everyone registered with the NHS?

That’s a complicated answer. By the time you get “old enough” you will have had interaction with a GP and probably some in hospital(s). The hospital records tend to be held at the hospital and not leave there, especially as they are in an A4 folder. I am sure you could have multiple A&E treatments and never end up with a GP record, but it is unlikely unless you are young and merely get “sports injuries”

I am sure contacting some people is not going to happen, especially in communities with a large “underground” element (people who arrived in the UK and have been kept “locked up underground” as domestic slaves; I think they are mostly women, and anyway these communities have by far the highest vaccine refusal rate) but in general people tend to be well known to a GP by the time they get to say 50.

This has just come out, so maybe we should be ok for a Sep 2021 fly-in to Sicily, and Aero EDNY in July looks doable

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Malibuflyer wrote:

it should be in the discretion of the individual shop-owner

That’s what I intended. They can quite easily make a rule that no-one comes in their shop unless they wear a face mask. This doesn’t require law or the intervention of government.

Malibuflyer wrote:

It is also a question for the social systems regulation if we a society want to pay cost of treatment for people that took the “own decision” to not get vaccinated or not wear masks and therefore get infected or infect others.

Covid-19 scores nowhere on this scale. We pay the treatment costs of people who smash themselves up playing rugby or falling off motorcycles, we pay the treatment costs of smoking-related diseases, we pay for PrEP for people who don’t want to practice safe sex, etc.

Malibuflyer wrote:

If the fine for visiting a football match without vaccination is high enough, it should prevent most people from doing so – even more so as vaccination is a longer term thing so that in contrast to DUI even a week later someone could tell you have been in the stadium and it can be checked if you had been vaccinated before. Adding significantly to the risk of being caught.

Not a chance here in the UK. We just aren’t that sort of society, thankfully. If there were anything conditional on being vaccinated, it would be a status check at the time. The idea that it could simply be illegal to do XYZ without having had a vaccine, and people could report your activities and check your vaccine status, well….. that’s rather chilling. I appreciate that in plenty of countries around the world there is less opposition to this sort of police-state type thing.

The main problem is the time taken to vaccinate everyone who wants one. I doubt free societies are going to accept a situation where for many months certain people (the older ones) can do and go wherever they want but the younger ones are much more restricted. Certainly in the UK that will never fly. In the EU it will be even worse – being age 39 I will probably have to wait until maybe June for my first jab, but if I were in an EU country it would quite possibly not even be this year. My guess is that once this becomes clear governments will abandon the idea.

EGLM & EGTN

So, to be practical about it, what happens if say Greece demands a proof of vaccination?

IMHO Greece should demand this, plus a 72hr CV19 test – they are highly vulnerable to N European infection, for a number of reasons.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Graham wrote:

Covid-19 scores nowhere on this scale. We pay the treatment costs of people who smash themselves up playing rugby or falling off motorcycles, we pay the treatment costs of smoking-related diseases, we pay for PrEP for people who don’t want to practice safe sex, etc.

While this obviously is country dependent, in general it is not true.

Cost of a broken leg from rugby would be about 4000 EUR (all in) and therefore pay you less than 4 days in ICU with Covid (if not on ECMO; ECMO roughly cost you 4k per day with some “long term discounts”. a week of ECMO sets you back about 23k)

Polytrauma from Motorcycle accidents can be extremely costly of course, but such expensive cases are far less frequent than ICU Covid cases. There is a reason why we see much more Covid patients in hospitals these days than motorcycle accidents although there are no restrictions.

And smoking has a very complex effect on total cost to society as many countries tax tobacco significantly.

Germany

Malibuflyer wrote:

While this obviously is country dependent, in general it is not true.

Cost of a broken leg from rugby would be about 4000 EUR (all in) and therefore pay you less than 4 days in ICU with Covid (if not on ECMO; ECMO roughly cost you 4k per day with some “long term discounts”. a week of ECMO sets you back about 23k)

Polytrauma from Motorcycle accidents can be extremely costly of course, but such expensive cases are far less frequent than ICU Covid cases. There is a reason why we see much more Covid patients in hospitals these days than motorcycle accidents although there are no restrictions.

And smoking has a very complex effect on total cost to society as many countries tax tobacco significantly.

The statement I made is true, but my point is not about the size of the cost. My point is that all those activities/injuries/diseases/costs are completely avoidable if people just made different choices, but we still pay for them.

I’m going to respectfully bow out of this part of the discussion (compulsory vaccination) now. I don’t think we’re likely to agree on this aspect of the debate and I find the idea of imposing (effectively) compulsory medical interventions on the population completely abhorrent.

EGLM & EGTN

Graham wrote:

I’m going to respectfully bow out of this part of the discussion (compulsory vaccination) now. I don’t think we’re likely to agree on this aspect of the debate and I find the idea of imposing (effectively) compulsory medical interventions on the population completely abhorrent.

In Germany the government announced very early on that there will be no compulsory vaccinations (which we do have for measles, at least for people working in healthcare, childcare or education) for SARS-CoV2.

However, it also became quite clear that it would be unconstitutional for the government to prevent private companies from only dealing with vaccinated clients if they want to. Our laws (BGB) place a very high value on freedom of choice on how to do business. Companies can discriminate people on a lot of factors as long as the people in question can do something about it (what is not allowed would be discrimination based on gender, race, religion etc.). The government is in denial on this, but most legal experts agree that de facto preferential treatment for vaccinated people is well within the rights of private companies.

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany
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