Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Yes but if the medical situation forces a change of political plan , exactly as the uk was forced to do last year , it will cause massive chaos and political fallout.

COVID isn’t listening to Boris

Well, that wasn't my point at all. My point was that perhaps the UK already did as much hard lockdown as the country can possibly afford and that there is simply no choice to do more now, even if Boris saw and understood some medical necessity for it.

These measures are extremely costly. A chilling report came out from the CDC in the U.S. a couple of days ago showing 20,000 extra drug overdoses during the lockdowns and tens or hundreds of thousands of other excess NON-COVID deaths, creating together with the COVID deaths the biggest drop in life expectancy in U.S. history.

Such measures may or may not be necessary in some circumstances (that's a difference discussion) but even if they really are necessary, you sure as hell can't put them in place for years at a time.

Therefore, and with vulnerable people already vaccinated so that further mortality will be limited, it might not be a stupid decision to just put life back to normal and try to just push to get the rest of the population vaccinated.


There was a warning about this more than a year ago from someone -- go too hard with these unsustainable measures and then when they can't be continued any more you may find yourself unable to do anything, whilst the pandemic is still not over.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

My point was that perhaps the UK already did as much hard lockdown as the country can possibly afford and that there is simply no choice to do more now, even if Boris saw and understood some medical necessity for it...

Or, to put it in another context ...

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, that wasn't my point at all. My point was that perhaps the UK already did as much hard lockdown as the country can possibly afford and that there is simply no choice to do more now, even if Boris saw and understood some medical necessity for it.

These measures are extremely costly. A chilling report came out from the CDC in the U.S. a couple of days ago showing 20,000 extra drug overdoses during the lockdowns and tens or hundreds of thousands of other excess NON-COVID deaths, creating together with the COVID deaths the biggest drop in life expectancy in U.S. history.

Such measures may or may not be necessary in some circumstances (that's a difference discussion) but even if they really are necessary, you sure as hell can't put them in place for years at a time.

Therefore, and with vulnerable people already vaccinated so that further mortality will be limited, it might not be a stupid decision to just put life back to normal and try to just push to get the rest of the population vaccinated.


There was a warning about this more than a year ago from someone -- go too hard with these unsustainable measures and then when they can't be continued any more you may find yourself unable to do anything, whilst the pandemic is still not over.

It’s not a process shared by many other countries

Most countries are releasing restrictions but on a gradual phased basis to both see what happens with the delta variant and to ensure that the brakes don’t have to applied hard again

The U.K. did exactly the same as now, believing in herd immunity and letting things “ rip” at the start of the pandemic and was forced to Institue hard lockdowns as a result.

We shall see

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

... A chilling report came out from the CDC in the U.S. a couple of days ago showing 20,000 extra drug overdoses during the lockdowns and tens or hundreds of thousands of other excess NON-COVID deaths, creating together with the COVID deaths the biggest drop in life expectancy in U.S. history ...

U.S. life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the largest one-year decline since the Second World War, public health officials said Wednesday. The decrease for both Black Americans and Hispanic Americans was even worse: three years.
For decades, U.S. life expectancy was on the upswing. But that trend stalled in 2015, for several years, before hitting 78 years, 10 months in 2019. Last year, the CDC said, it dropped to about 77 years, four months.
Killers, other than COVID-19 played a role. Drug overdoses pushed life expectancy down, particularly for whites.

Provisional Life Expectancy Estimates for 2020 ~ CDC
➥ https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr015-508.pdf

Overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government reported Wednesday.
That estimate far eclipses the high of about 72,000 drug overdose deaths reached the previous year and amounts to a 29% increase.

Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts ~ CDC
➥ https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/d...rdose-data.htm

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

... The Delta variant puts herd immunity even further out of reach ...

You might be, just a little, overly pessimistic.


“Two Pfizer, AstraZeneca doses work against Delta variant”

Two doses of Pfizer shot are 88 percent effective, at preventing the Delta variant, while two doses of AstraZeneca are 67 percent effective.
A study [1] published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, also found that one dose of Pfizer's shot was 36 percent effective and one dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine was about 30 percent effective.
The study confirms findings given by Public Health England (PHE) in May, about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca, based on real-world data.

“Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccines against the B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant”~ by Jamie Lopez Bernal, F.F.P.H., Ph.D. et al

“... Conclusions
Only modest differences in vaccine effectiveness were noted with the delta variant as compared with the alpha variant after the receipt of two vaccine doses. Absolute differences in vaccine effectiveness were more marked after the receipt of the first dose. This finding would support efforts to maximize vaccine uptake with two doses among vulnerable populations ...”

[1] Full study ➥ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891

Quick factoids:
The Delta variant of SARS-Cov-2 is 88% less likely to infect a fully vaccinated person, than a non-vaccinated person, whereas most earlier variants are 95% less likely to infect a fully-vaccinated person.
That makes the vaccine only 7% less effective against Delta, and still 13% more effective than most flu vaccines.
The Delta variant is 98.6% less likely to infect someone fully vaccinated and wearing a mask.
For any variant, a fully vaccinated person. who is unlikely enough to catch the virus anyway, is about 95% less likely to require hospitalization, and better than 99% less likely to die, than had they caught it without being vaccinated.

[boatman61]

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-...accinated.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57610998

https://fullfact.org/online/fully-va...-daily-expose/


Lots of likely, may and other uncertainties in these reports.. room for 'rowback'???
Almost as clear as Boris on the Freedom Day declaration..
But hey.. I got my two jabs so I may.. or may not die as a result of Covid..

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by boatman61

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-...accinated.html



https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57610998



https://fullfact.org/online/fully-va...-daily-expose/





Lots of likely, may and other uncertainties in these reports.. room for 'rowback'???

Almost as clear as Boris on the Freedom Day declaration..

But hey.. I got my two jabs so I may.. or may not die as a result of Covid..

I think you have a 67% of 40 % of 38% of dying plus minus 5% masking wearing and 8.24% avoiding pubs.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by boatman61

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-...accinated.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57610998

https://fullfact.org/online/fully-va...-daily-expose/


Lots of likely, may and other uncertainties in these reports.. room for 'rowback'???
Almost as clear as Boris on the Freedom Day declaration..
But hey.. I got my two jabs so I may.. or may not die as a result of Covid..

Scientific information is never completely, unequivocally, certain, and the only scientific certainty is uncertainty. At times, these inevitable scientific uncertainties have been framed as synonymous with doubt, and used to try to discredit findings.
The language of uncertainty can be confusing. When taken out of a scientific context, “uncertainties” seem to indicate that scientists are just plain wrong.
In scientific discourse, “uncertainty” does not imply that the science is unreliable. Instead, uncertainty is about probabilities and likelihoods that describe our understanding of a particular outcome.

You got your 2 jabs, so you may or may not die as a result of Covid ... to a 99% Certainty.

[boatman61]

Avoiding pubs is easy.. they are a rarity in Portugal once away from the Brit hangouts like Lagos, Alvor, Faro and Albufeira.. 500 odd kilometres to the South of me..
How ever there are compensations.. Decent Cuban Rum at €15/bottle, beer at 60 centimes and less (import or local) a bottle, ciggies at €5 or less for 20..

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Scientific information is never completely, unequivocally, certain, and the only scientific certainty is uncertainty. At times, these inevitable scientific uncertainties have been framed as synonymous with doubt, and used to try to discredit findings.
The language of uncertainty can be confusing. When taken out of a scientific context, “uncertainties” seem to indicate that scientists are just plain wrong.

I'm not saying they are wrong.. just that they don't yet know if they are right.
To many 'scientific uncertainties'..

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Avoiding pubs is easy.. they are a rarity in Portugal once away from the Brit hangouts like Lagos, Alvor, Faro and Albufeira.. 500 odd kilometres to the South of me..
How ever there are compensations.. Decent Cuban Rum at €15/bottle, beer at 60 centimes and less (import or local) a bottle, ciggies at €5 or less for 20..

Tell me about it. I’m in Greece ! Who’d want to be home right now

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

It’s not a process shared by many other countries

Most countries are releasing restrictions but on a gradual phased basis to both see what happens with the delta variant and to ensure that the brakes don’t have to applied hard again

The U.K. did exactly the same as now, believing in herd immunity and letting things “ rip” at the start of the pandemic and was forced to Institue hard lockdowns as a result.

We shall see

There's a lot of severe pandemic fatigue all around Europe and measures are being relaxed everywhere despite rising cases. I wonder if there is any correlation between the severity of the measures and the speed of relaxation now -- I wouldn't be surprised if there is.



The UK went from one extreme to another and then back to the first extreme. I'm not sure it's a good idea, but "letting go and living with the virus" is happening all over the world -- there's even a New York Times article about it today: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/w...ronavirus.html


A funny and ironic fact -- the LAST country in this region to relax restrictions is SWEDEN, whose pandemic measures were much misunderstood and much maligned at the beginning of the pandemic. They are doing what they said they would do at the beginning -- implement SUSTAINABLE measures which could be kept in place as long as necessary, with the thought in mind that the pandemic could last a long, long time. They are talking about relaxation of the remaining measures for sometime in August, but they are in a better position than the rest of us to do so -- they have the lowest infection rate in the region at the moment, and cases are not rising, unlike Finland and Norway, and have not had a fourth wave at all, unlike Denmark.

[TeddyDiver]

Back home finally. Sailing was good but some days no wind so also some motoring.

My experiments: Flying to Denmark from Finland, no testing nor other checks. Shetland restricted, only fuel dock allowed without testing and quarantine. Faroes obligatory testing if not fully vaccinated. Free testing thou. Iceland, two tests in Faroes and sailing was adequate as quarantine time for free entry. Flying to Finland, no restrictions but free testing. Norway, obligatory testing on the land border.

[goboatingnow]

The more I see of the numbers and the alarming predictions of the NHS and other hospital authorities the more I think we are heading back to restrictions in the autumn.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Back home finally. Sailing was good but some days no wind so also some motoring.

My experiments: Flying to Denmark from Finland, no testing nor other checks. Shetland restricted, only fuel dock allowed without testing and quarantine. Faroes obligatory testing if not fully vaccinated. Free testing thou. Iceland, two tests in Faroes and sailing was adequate as quarantine time for free entry. Flying to Finland, no restrictions but free testing. Norway, obligatory testing on the land border.

Sounds like you had a really interesting sailling trip! You should post about it (and photos).