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

[Pelagic]

This seems to have become a feral discussion about Australia in a European Thread.
I am more interested in hearing about updates on the cooperation between European Countries .

Who is leading this and who are dragging their feet ?

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Wotname

I've heard you don't read a lot but clearly you are edikated - not sure though if you are referring to The Captain of the Push or the Bastard from the Bush or some Victorian campo version...

or (NSFW)

https://www.australianculture.org/th...from-the-bush/

Both seem appropriately irreverent.

I was think of the well wishes that the leader of the push called down upon his nemesis - the chappy from the bush
'“You low polluted bastard,” snarled the Captain of the Push,
“Get back to where you come from, that’s somewhere in the bush,
And I hope that vile misfortune may tumble down on you,
......
and so on to the end.
Quite a bit stronger than a simple artillery barrage.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

This seems to have become a feral discussion about Australia in a European Thread.
I am more interested in hearing about updates on the cooperation between European Countries .

Who is leading this and who are dragging their feet ?

I think the Euros are all a-bed just now.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

The other similarity to the Stalin period is informing on neighbours and friends breaking minor rules. This occurred extensively in Australia, particularly in regard to having guests at home.



I still find it hard to accept history is repeating itself in so many regards. There would still be people alive who were adults during Stalin’s rule. Certainly most of their children probably would be. This is living history, not something merely analysed by historians and studied by students.



I find it hard to comprehend how quickly and easily this has occurred in my home country.



SWL

To compare the (possible) fining and jailing in Australia today as results of informing to what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin is unconscionable. Seriously, one a legal process applied only in the most egregious cases, while the other had Stalin presiding over extra-judicial executions and banishments to undefined terms of 10+ years.

Sorry SWL, but you’re going off the reservation with that kind of comparison.

Are you next going to defend the Australian anti-vaxxer who dressed herself and her three young kids with yellow Stars of David with the words “no vax” on them? Her right to freedom of speech does not include trivialising the Holocaust.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by fxykty

To compare the (possible) fining and jailing in Australia today as results of informing to what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin is unconscionable. Seriously, one a legal process applied only in the most egregious cases, while the other had Stalin presiding over extra-judicial executions and banishments to undefined terms of 10+ years.

Sorry SWL, but you’re going off the reservation with that kind of comparison.

Are you next going to defend the Australian anti-vaxxer who dressed herself and her three young kids with yellow Stars of David with the words “no vax” on them? Her right to freedom of speech does not include trivialising the Holocaust.

It seems I have touched a raw nerve. Apologies.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

This seems to have become a feral discussion about Australia in a European Thread.
I am more interested in hearing about updates on the cooperation between European Countries .

Who is leading this and who are dragging their feet ?

Apologies also for the thread drift.

To get us back on track, here is the update for the UK, one of the hardest hit countries in Europe. I expect Dockhead will chime in again at some stage with other data.

Case numbers are approaching those during UK’s peak of the pandemic (highest hospitalisations and deaths) in January & February 2021, although a direct comparison is difficult as the current testing rate is now averaging more than twice the rate then.
Testing data:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing

Case numbers are driven mainly by the young. These high numbers are occurring despite an estimated 93% of the population would have tested positive to antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (due to either infection or vaccination) in August. This figure is now 2 months out of date. Both infections and vaccinations have risen since then:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...hts/antibodies

It really does look like we are in it for the long haul.

On the positive side, hospitalisations are less than 1/5 of the numbers during UK’s peak of the pandemic and deaths are around 1/10, although after a small dip lasting a few weeks, numbers are rising slightly again.

Average deaths over 7 days are 121 per day, down from 143 in September (the peak of the third wave so far) and down from over 1200 in January.

Graphs are from here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...inations-today

[Seaworthy Lass]

I mentioned above that case numbers were driven by the young in the UK.

Conversely, hospitalisations and deaths are still being driven by the aged, particularly 65+. These are predominantly occurring in the less than 10% of this group who are not vaccinated. From January to July 2021 there were 51,281 deaths involving COVID-19 in England. Merely 640 were fully vaccinated. This must surely provide incentive for the vulnerable to get vaccinated:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...ryand2july2021

This is England’s data for a week in October:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...ghts/hospitals

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I mentioned above that case numbers were driven by the young in the UK.

Conversely, hospitalisations and deaths are still being driven by the aged, particularly 65+. These are predominantly occurring in the less than 10% of this group who are not vaccinated. From January to July 2021 there were 51,281 deaths involving COVID-19. Merely 640 were fully vaccinated. This must surely provide incentive for the vulnerable to get vaccinated:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...ryand2july2021

This is UK’s data for a week in October:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...ghts/hospitals

And what is the chatter over there? Are people happy that releasing all the restrictions was the right thing to do? Is the toll of hospitalized and dead considered acceptable?

We've gone a similar way up here with all Nordic countries except Finland having declared an end to the pandemic and an end to pandemic measures. Basically -- get vaccinated if you're not already, or else take your chances. The difference to the UK being we have a very low level of infection, so we don't have such hard questions to face.







When vaccination is universally available, and when it's the unvaccinated who are overwhelmingly at risk, then the moral question of whether it is justified to harm children and young people to protect the vulnerable looks different, doesn't it? I guess the UK is doing the right thing, although it must be tough after 1 1/2 years of this nightmare to STILL be seeing such infection numbers.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

And what is the chatter over there? Are people happy that releasing all the restrictions was the right thing to do? Is the toll of hospitalized and dead considered acceptable?

A lot of middle aged people I hang round with were quite horrified. ( they don’t like Boris either )

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

A lot of middle aged people I hang round with were quite horrified. ( they don’t like Boris either )

In the UK? I thought you are in Ireland.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

And what is the chatter over there? Are people happy that releasing all the restrictions was the right thing to do? Is the toll of hospitalized and dead considered acceptable?

I am not in the UK currently, but from reading news reports and emails from friends the impression I have is that unless personally affected, people have become desensitised to these numbers, just as they are by the 700,000 other deaths that occur yearly in the UK.

I think NHS funds do need to be boosted though, both for facilities and staff. Even normally during influenza season hospitals were “stressed”. Hospitals are now understaffed, primarily it seems as much of the nursing staff and blue collar hospital workers (porters and cleaners) were recruited from the EU and this has become difficult following Brexit. Many remaining medical personnel report they are burned out. It has not helped that NHS staff received merely a 3% pay rise this year.

SWL

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

In the UK? I thought you are in Ireland.

I’m in Greece there’s a lot of U.K. nationals here.

I also have extended family in the U.K. my mother’s family are English.

I also chat to lots of U.K. groups as I teach a few tech subjects ( programming to older people etc ) and Covid cones up regularly. I would say that a relatively large group of middle to elderly are quite concerned and it’s noticeable that several events in my sphere in the U.K. have been cancelled in the run up to Christmas

Several people on the U.K. have opined that restrictions may be reimposed but I don’t believe that will happen.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I’m in Greece there’s a lot of U.K. nationals here.

I also have extended family in the U.K. my mother’s family are English.

I also chat to lots of U.K. groups as I teach a few tech subjects ( programming to older people etc ) and Covid cones up regularly. I would say that a relatively large group of middle to elderly are quite concerned and it’s noticeable that several events in my sphere in the U.K. have been cancelled in the run up to Christmas

Several people on the U.K. have opined that restrictions may be reimposed but I don’t believe that will happen.

OK, thanks. Useful data points.


My closest friends in the UK have small children. Although they also loathe Boris, they are not in favor of the reimposition of restrictions. They say their children have suffered enough, and shouldn't be called upon to make more sacrifices for the sake of people who are refusing to get vaccinated, when vaccination is freely available to all adults. Not that their sacrifices are so bad compared to other families -- living in the country, two highly educated parents one of whom isn't presently working, so the kids have best possible conditions for remote learning. But even the loss of social activities with other children is harmful to their social development.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I am not in the UK currently, but from reading news reports and emails from friends the impression I have is that unless personally affected, people have become desensitised to these numbers, just as they are by the 700,000 other deaths that occur yearly in the UK.

I think NHS funds do need to be boosted though, both for facilities and staff. Even normally during influenza season hospitals were “stressed”. Hospitals are now understaffed, primarily it seems as much of the nursing staff and blue collar hospital workers (porters and cleaners) were recruited from the EU and this has become difficult following Brexit. Many remaining medical personnel report they are burned out. It has not helped that NHS staff received merely a 3% pay rise this year.

SWL

NHS has been chronically stressed for decades. Would be way too much thread drift to get into whether this is the right system or not.


And yes, 700,000 deaths in a normal year -- that's almost 2000 per day. Covid deaths are running at some 150 per day (compare to the peak of nearly 2000 back in February). I think that's considerably less than during a bad flu season. I guess it's not too hard to consider this "acceptable losses", considering the cost of reimposing restrictions, and even more, considering the fact that most of the dead made a choice not to get vaccinated although it was available.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

…..When vaccination is universally available, and when it's the unvaccinated who are overwhelmingly at risk, then the moral question of whether it is justified to harm children and young people to protect the vulnerable looks different, doesn't it?…..

I have always thought so.

Also, I think it is vital that the vulnerable are identified and their risk stressed. I have not seen this emphasised sufficiently. It is almost as if to do so would be discrimination by age or health status and so everyone is treated by the same broad brush, both with medical and non medical preventative measures taken.

Hand in hand with age, unfortunately health diminishes as well. Correlation does not mean causation, but staggering numbers of deaths with COVID-19 have preexisting conditions:

“Of deaths in England and Wales where COVID-19 was the underlying cause, the most common pre-existing condition recorded on the death certificate was diabetes (April to June 2021). This was identified in almost a quarter (23%) of COVID-19 deaths……….Pre-existing health conditions are recorded if they are believed to have made some contribution to the death.”

Hypertensive and heart disease and chronic respiratory disease also each made up about 15% of cases. The full list is extensive:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...nsights/deaths

I have not seen exact figures, but it seems almost all (90+% ?) of COVID-19 related deaths also had another preexisting medical condition. This group not only needs to be vaccinated to reduce risk, but if they wish to minimise severe illness they should possibly be continuing to take additional precautions such as wearing masks and limiting contact with large groups indoors, apart from the obvious of making sure they do their utmost to improve their health through diet and exercise.

I will probably be lynched for saying this (a hyperbole folks, don’t pounce on the deliberate exaggeration), but people need to take more responsibility for their own health rather than relying on others, including their medical practitioners, to do so for them.

SWL