[Cyclist]

He looks like a yob who's just got himself a job as 'assistant manager' at his local Greasy Fried Chicken joint.

[Boiler]

https://metro.co.uk/2021/11/04/uk-appro ... TbvR6L7Zm8

Sajid Javid is betting the farm on a new experimental pill that hasn't been through peer review nor have the potential side effects been disclosed but by Gove it jolly well knocks COVID for six!

We can add making the electorate into human guinea pigs onto their extensive list of pandemic mishandlings.

Isn't much the same said about the vaccines in certain quarters though?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Cat is worried.

[Nigredo]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59178291

At least they're also investing in a slightly more reputable alternative, though "stopping trials early because results were so successful" makes me raise a skeptical eyebrow.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

That's an ethical issue in all blind trials; if the drug works very effectively it is unethical to continue to give people the placebo.

[kreuzberger]

EDASD

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Q

Has anyone else here had the booster, uses the NHS App and has established their Covid Passport?

If so, is your 3rd injection showing on that - I ask because mine isn't.

Also - it expires on December 21st - does it then renew? I won't need the foreign one until next spring, when I hope we won't have to do 2-day tests and can travel, passported, without let or hindrance as it used to say on the real passport.

[satnav]

I think all the passports have a short date on them but they renew automatically on the day that they run out. I needed to use my vaccine passport to attend a concert about three weeks ago and it appeared to run out on 5th November but when I checked today it now says 5th December.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Thanks. I suppose the booster isn't relevant to the passport.

[mattomac]

I think we should do all things possible but the latest government campaign thing about opening windows every hour when socialising without the addition of masks and without social distancing is pointless.

It’s also not very environmentally friendly and it will cost the taxpayer who is already suffering from high bills.

The almost obsession with not wearing a mask is idiotic.

[Boiler]

Oddly enough, I was asked at work today (and a right shit day it has been too) if I was happy with the existing Covid arrangements. We're still wearing masks and keeping areas ventilated where possible but the 2m rule and numbers of people in a room is a bit lax IMO. I've started doing the recommended twice-weekly lateral flow tests.

[kreuzberger]

Having a fucked arm and being prevented from scooting hither and thither, I have been on the BVG transit system for two days running.

Masking is being impeccably observed here and in shops, yet we have a 180 incidence and are writing record numbers of new infections.

Wenn es nicht verboten ist, ist es erlaubt "When it's not forbidden, it's fine and dandy", is the Prussian and, by extension, the German motto. Hence a Chinese snack bar on the corner being stuffed this afternoon to the gunwales with workies and the local bloggers. Just one of many examples.

We have the 2G rule here whereby you need to be vaxxed or demonstrably healed but busy restaurants and pubs cannot or will not enforce that to the letter. That's seen as the state's job, remember?

I am beyond frustrated. We are fucked and heading for another hard lockdown.

[Boiler]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59215282

I wonder how many NHS staff will consider this a final straw and leave?

[Crabcakes]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59215282

I wonder how many NHS staff will consider this a final straw and leave?

Probably not many. Any frontline NHS staff member who isn't already brutally aware of the reality of covid must be a rare thing indeed. And I think "frontline" is the key. Admin staff etc. will be away from patients and can have the selfish luxury of vaccine scepticism if they wish.

[Boiler]

Thing is, with segregation in most hospitals a lot of front-line staff aren't necessarily 'aware' of Covid.

[kreuzberger]

Thing is, with segregation in most hospitals a lot of front-line staff aren't necessarily 'aware' of Covid.

Whether employed on the Covid front-line or not, you would need to be really fucking thick to not be "aware" of the virus. You certainly wouldn't want these people to be around sick and vulnerable patients.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I suppose if you had been living in a cave in the Andes for the last 2 years...

[Nigredo]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59234443

Forboding news from Keuzy land

[Spoonman]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59234443

Forboding news from Keuzy land

The article points out that the main hot-spot of the current German outbreak is in Saxony. That I believe is the lander of Saxony where AfD scored their highest share of the party list vote (narrowly better than Thuringia) in the recent federal German election. Not a coincidence, I'm sure...

[kreuzberger]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59234443

Forboding news from Keuzy land

Quite. That's why the Kreuzberg Klaxon was being sounded with great gusto on here last week. Hospitalisations and deaths are rising, the individual states are mandating ever-stricter restrictions upon who can do what and where, according to their vaccine status, and there is observational evidence that voluntary distancing is back.

I was out at 13:30 today for cheese and the mid-week veggies, and the market was deserted to the point that traders were packing up. Few are taking any chances in the face of the looming catastrofuck. It was like Feb 2020 all over again.

The 7-day incidence here is now standing at a critically-dangerous 231/100,000.

For context, that on learn-to-live-with-it Island is 344.

Um, as Columbo might say, just one thing...