[kreuzberger]

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...

Sachsen and Thüringen are skewing the numbers, but so is Bayern. What's their excuse - too important for grubby little viruses?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Antivaxxers out in the High Street today, harassing people going to the Remembrance parade. Witnessed and photographed by Spike. She says people were sounding their horns at them, and she got the impression it wasn't in support.

I notice that one has come on his electric scooter. Sums them up...

E6119A55-0902-442C-8F63-48A69B57F6C7.jpeg (326.05 KiB) Viewed 949 times

[Boiler]

HTF is this going to be enforced?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59283128

Overall, Europe has again become the region most seriously-affected by the pandemic and several countries are introducing restrictions and warning of rising cases.

Austria's new measures are estimated to affect about two million people, who were already barred from visiting restaurants, hairdressers and cinemas but will now be told to stay at home.

"In reality we have told one third of the population: you will not leave your apartment anymore apart from for certain reasons," Mr Schallenberg said.

"That is a massive reduction in contacts between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated."

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Perhaps they're relying on co-operation rather than coercion.

You know, being positive.

[Cyclist]

Mask-wearing is the single most effective public health measure at tackling Covid, reducing incidence by 53%, the first global study of its kind shows.

Vaccines are safe and effective and saving lives around the world. But most do not confer 100% protection, most countries have not vaccinated everyone, and it is not yet known if jabs will prevent future transmission of emerging coronavirus variants...

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... tudy-finds

But, yeah. It's not, like, 100% effective, so why bovver, innit.

[The All New KevS]

Austria now going into full lockdown, and making jabs mandatory.

[Boiler]

Over on an anxiety forum I frequent this has sent the resident arsehole into a spiral - he is scared of getting covid but wants everyone else to get vaccinated because he has "issues" with needles, swabs etc. He spends most of his time watching GB News, reading the Torygraph and listening to Julia Dunning-Kruger and somehow he is convinced that he is going to be pinned down and jabbed against his will, whilst simultaneously moaning about how he can't travel and go to gigs, football matches etc....

[The All New KevS]

I did just dip a toe in the murky mire of searching Twitter for "Austria".

I bailed when I saw the word "Anschluss".

[Boiler]

I did just dip a toe in the murky mire of searching Twitter for "Austria".

I bailed when I saw the word "Anschluss".

Annoyance came at the vaccination centre today. I stood patiently queueing for my appointment when some entitled old bat walks up to the front and says to the steward "my appointment is at half past eleven, and it's half past eleven now. I can't wait, I have to be somewhere at five"

Him asking her to go to the back of the queue fell on deaf ears. "No, I have to be somewhere at five. It's important". So I am asked if I mind letting her jump. I roll my eyes and say "I suppose so". No thanks from the entitled old bat for doing so. When she's asked the question "how do you feel in yourself?" she snaps back "suicidal".

Somehow, I doubt that.

Anyway, Pfizered up. A mate of mine is getting a fourth dose - how's that work?

[Boiler]

The BBC ran a SYB on the Austrian lockdown.

Funnily enough, they've already closed it - given comments like

Screenshot 2021-11-19 at 13-36-04 Austria to go into full lockdown as Covid surges.png (4.7 KiB) Viewed 767 times

Screenshot 2021-11-19 at 13-37-47 Austria to go into full lockdown as Covid surges.png (11.28 KiB) Viewed 765 times

[Malcolm Armsteen]

This looks pretty nasty.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ns-violent


Rotterdam police open fire as Covid protest turns violent
Warning shots fired as unrest breaks out over Dutch plans to impose restrictions on unvaccinated people

Police in Rotterdam have fired warning shots, injuring protesters, as riots broke out at a demonstration against government plans to impose restrictions on unvaccinated people.

Crowds of rioters torched cars and threw rocks at police in the centre of the Dutch port city on Friday, and police responded with shots and water canon.

“We fired warning shots and there were also direct shots fired because the situation was life-threatening,” police spokesperson Patricia Wessels said.

Dutch police said units from around the country were brought in to “restore order”.

Local media said gangs of football hooligans were involved in the rioting.

[kreuzberger]

That sounds like a rather excessive response but, hey, the cloggies - especially the Feyenoord mob - can escalate a situation in double-quick time and especially, one would imagine, if they have been binge drinking ahead of the pubs closing at 20:00.

I am in Zwolle with some artisan carpenters for a couple of days next week, and was already feeling my enthusiasm wane. We'll see what happens today with a similar protest in Breda, but I am minded to sit this trip out.

[Boiler]

I do wonder how long it will be before that comes to the UK, TBQH - especially when you read stuff like this on forums:

They are upping the stakes. Austria is planning to force everyone to get injected in February. The EU will extend that to all its countries. This is why the global cabal opposed Brexit so fiercely - they wanted control of the UK. But Johnson may comply anyway. They know we know the vaccines are about imposing repressive QR Codes - not public health. So they will want to move as quickly as they can before all reasonable people join mass protests. WE HAVE TO STOP THEIR PLANS.

What so many - including our so called leaders - don't get is that the tactics they are employing only make the hesitant, like me, even less likely to have these vaccines. I also know of many that have had two jabs now saying they won't have the third. They did their bit and are sick of the goalposts moving. It will take some time, but this narrative is starting to fall apart. I'm more than happy to avoid restaurants, pubs, holidays, etc. And they can't fire me because I'm self-employed in a field that is a highly skilled one and for which there is much demand. So nothing will sway me from keeping control of my own choices about my body and my health. Eventually the penny will drop that the majority that are vaccinated are the ones spreading the virus. A virus that has a survival rate of >99%, like flu. A virus we just live with.

I hope you are wrong but the way Germany moved you have to wonder if they will apply these mandates across the EU. If someone dies of the vaccine nobody blinks an eye lid. So in Austria if you die of the vaccine nobody cares as it’s the law to be vaccinated. This is why it’s personal choice covid can be very serious but for some people the vaccine can be that’s why it has to be choice. And even if we have 100% vaccination I think I read somewhere does and they just went into lockdown. And I seen the QR code sainsburys on social media today. It’s very scary times I think so many are happy to keep taking jabs 4th has been recommended early 2022 It’s on government website. This year I have had letters for 3 covid vaccines and one flu jab I never get the flu jab usually. I think what worries me is how many people are happy to sleepwalk into some sort of police state QR code everywhere 10th booster jab maybe a few tests to holiday maybe a mask. Call me old fashioned but that’s not normal especially when we declare the pandemic over likely 2022/23.

I think the dolt in the second quote may be referring to the "shop and go" Sainsbury's store that has just opened, working on the Amazon model: I suspect there will be some saying the shop won't let you in unless you've got a valid Covid vaccination pass... (I'm only guessing because he's been challenged over his sources before and never posts them)

As for the first "And they can't fire me because I'm self-employed in a field that is a highly skilled one and for which there is much demand" - well, they can't fire you - but they can cease using you. Or they may just simply train their own people... no-one is indispensable after all - cemeteries have plenty of those.

[Boiler]

Meanwhile, this from the i. I'm very cautious about this, but it could be news we've been hoping for.

The evolution of the Delta variant is offering a cautiously optimistic glimpse of how the next few months of the pandemic could unfold for the UK.

AY.4.2, an offshoot of the original Delta strain which now accounts for 15 per cent of new UK cases, appears to produce fewer symptoms in people than its parent.

Scientists at Imperial College London, as part of their ongoing React study into the prevalence of the virus in the UK, found that 66.7 per cent of AY.4.2 cases were symptomatic, compared to 76.4 per cent of its Delta parent, AY.4.

While the UK Health Security Agency has already reported very early signs that AY.4.2 – so-called Child of Delta – could be less severe, their findings were within the margin of error. The Imperial study results on AY.4.2 causing fewer symptoms are, crucially, statistically significant, meaning the differences with original Delta cannot be caused by chance.

AY.4.2 does not appear to make vaccines any less effective than original Delta.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/fewer ... uk-1308828

[davidjay]

Meanwhile, this from the i. I'm very cautious about this, but it could be news we've been hoping for.

The evolution of the Delta variant is offering a cautiously optimistic glimpse of how the next few months of the pandemic could unfold for the UK.

AY.4.2, an offshoot of the original Delta strain which now accounts for 15 per cent of new UK cases, appears to produce fewer symptoms in people than its parent.

Scientists at Imperial College London, as part of their ongoing React study into the prevalence of the virus in the UK, found that 66.7 per cent of AY.4.2 cases were symptomatic, compared to 76.4 per cent of its Delta parent, AY.4.

While the UK Health Security Agency has already reported very early signs that AY.4.2 – so-called Child of Delta – could be less severe, their findings were within the margin of error. The Imperial study results on AY.4.2 causing fewer symptoms are, crucially, statistically significant, meaning the differences with original Delta cannot be caused by chance.

AY.4.2 does not appear to make vaccines any less effective than original Delta.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/fewer ... uk-1308828

I'm no expert so I could well be wrong, but it seems to me that the reason the whole pandemic has been so lengthy and damaging is because it hasn't behaved normally - whereas new strains would be expected to be more contagious but less harmful, the Delta variant was the worst of both worlds. Now that seems to have burnt itself out the new one will, with a bit of luck and the wind in the right direction, go the way it was supposed to and Covid will become a strain of the common cold (which has been right bugger for me and Mrs jay this past week, but that's another story).

[Bones McCoy]

It's essentially a crapshoot.

Virus mutates to become a disease: For this it has transmission and symptoms.
People catch it, spread it, and probably develop a degree of immunity.

All this while the virus is mutating.
Mutation is a natural thing, not a response to immunity.
However some mutations bypass established immunity and if they cause equal or worse symptoms we tend to notice them.

There's a concept known as regression toward the mean, that things spun off from the exceptional will usually be more normal.
But statistics being what they are, some could be worse.
And in pandemics, its the worse things that get noticed.

[RedSparrows]

Conspiracy and control theory issue #221: if they're so blinking evil, why didn't they just... I dunno, do any of this shit differently?

[Cyclist]

Well, who could have seen this coming?

Covid-19 is no longer a disease of the vaccinated, the head of the Oxford jab programme has said.

The “ongoing horror” of patients gasping for breath in hospital is now “largely restricted” to people who are unvaccinated, according to Prof Sir Andrew Pollard.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... -scientist

I am shocked to hear that people who get vaccinated against a disease generally suffer less badly if they catch it than those who don't get vaccinated.

Who'd have thought?




Note: I'm not taking the piss out of Sir Andrew here.

[Boiler]

Meanwhile, where mother-in-law lives cases have tripled - from 47 to 144...

[kreuzberger]

I am in Zwolle with some artisan carpenters for a couple of days next week, and was already feeling my enthusiasm wane. We'll see what happens today with a similar protest in Breda, but I am minded to sit this trip out.

Well, that's the end of that. The DE government has elevated the risk in NL to such a point that I would need to quarantine for ten days upon getting back home.

There are riots in Zwolle, too. That doesn't really bother me (dahling, have you seen my username?) but my hotel overlooks where the trouble has been. Sitting on the balcony, plotting and scheming, with a fag and a robust corkscrew - that just wasn't going to happen, either, what with the tear-gas and the potential for stray bullets.

Bollocks. 250 € down the drain and a visit to a nice, little Hanse Town shoved on to the back-burner.

(TBH, a visit to NL is the last thing my waist-line needs at the moment, but that's another story.)