Coronavirus

[Serial_Apologist]

There is a detailed report on several cases by the Singapore Authorities (sorry can't find my ref) of which one example was infection in a restaurant, a basement room thus no windows but the ventilation was a fan extractor and it appeared that the infection was carried in the air movement from a distant infected customer to one near the wall mounted extraction fan.

This raises an issue that has been on my mind for some time, but has not afaik been mentioned in the media: namely, the extent, if at all, to which bus extractors are venting Covid from the rear of the moving vehicles. When cycling London bus routes I am taking care to try to avoid tailing buses, and holding back the moment I get the blast of hot air, this being particularly noticeable during cold weather such as we have now. Maybe pedestrians should be told to bear this in mind as a possibility?

The point about the distance at which one might be infected by exhaled virus being estimable by comparison with detectable smell of cigarette smoke falls, I think, given that Covid, we are told, is dependent on moisture in the air for its transportation - which does not apply to smoke.

[cloughie]

This raises an issue that has been on my mind for some time, but has not afaik been mentioned in the media: namely, the extent, if at all, to which bus extractors are venting Covid from the rear of the moving vehicles. When cycling London bus routes I am taking care to try to avoid tailing buses, and holding back the moment I get the blast of hot air, this being particularly noticeable during cold weather such as we have now. Maybe pedestrians should be told to bear this in mind as a possibility?

The point about the distance at which one might be infected by exhaled virus being estimable by comparison with detectable smell of cigarette smoke falls, I think, given that Covid, we are told, is dependent on moisture in the air for its transportation - which does not apply to smoke.

I may be wrong but I suspect that exhaled smoke probably has a fair proportion of moisture in it!

[Serial_Apologist]

I may be wrong but I suspect that exhaled smoke probably has a fair proportion of moisture in it!

I'm maybe on weak ground here, but it might be the smoke rather than remaining moisture that gets conveyed over longish distances as an aroma? Close at hand I could agree, of course.

Any thoughts on vehicle ventilation systems being possible sources of infection?

(Edit: I'm thinking that any moisture content in exhaled cigarette etc smoke would presumably be difficult if not impossible to isolate from overall prevailing atmospheric humidity levels for analysis purposes).

[Anastasius]

If your OH works in a school, esp in a classroom setting, as mine does, it is a relevant question.
Wide open to it.......

She was a teacher decades ago. My fingers crossed for your OH.

TBH...I'm in Group 4 for the vaccination and given our natural tendency to 'self-isolate' (although I really would like to get back to the tatty old 'iron gym' that I used to frequent) it could be argued that teachers, for example, would benefit more in the short term.

[oddoneout]

So the bright flame of hope that is(was) the arrival of vaccines is to be dimmed by the government deciding yet again that it knows better than the scientists and going off piste. I suppose it was inevitable that plans for actually administering a vaccine would be at best inadequate, but then to start playing mix and match when the administering does manage to get going and the full scale of what is being attempted suddenly dawns just beggars belief. The news that note will not be made of who gets what shouldn't come as a surprise I suppose.
Victory into defeat springs to mind.

[Dave2002]

Victory into defeat springs to mind.

Don't fret. Someone has worked out that with the extra 9-10 weeks or more, that people at the top end of the age range will have dropped off the log by the time that they're due for the second injection, thus allowing more other people to be treated.

[oddoneout]

Don't fret. Someone has worked out that with the extra 9-10 weeks or more, that people at the top end of the age range will have dropped off the log by the time that they're due for the second injection, thus allowing more other people to be treated.

And those that haven't will have forgotten that they were supposed to have a second jab so freeing up yet more doses...

[johnb]

Far be it for me to defend this lamentable government but the "mix and match" issue seems to have been fired up by an inflamatory article in the NY Times.

It is perfectly reasonable for the PHE to do contingency planning (indeed it would be remiss to do otherwise) and the question of "what do we do if the vaccine someone had as a first dose is not available?" is one that must be addressed. As I understanding it, "mix and match" is definitely not the policy of PHE. (There are however trials of mix and matching vaccines as there are some indications that this might enhance the efficacy of the vaccines - but that is a totally separate matter.)

I also think the policy of delaying the second dose is immanently sensible in the current circumstances.

[Anastasius]

Anyone see the depressing footage if the crowd outside St Thomas crying 'Hoax'? Unmasked. No social distancing. At least in France, the police actually get their act together and as well as fining the organisers of the 2500+ rave, fined those attending.

Perhaps BoJo should be nicknamed 'Nero'. We need another national lockdown. A blind man could see that.

[Nick Armstrong]

Anyone see the depressing footage if the crowd outside St Thomas crying 'Hoax'? Unmasked. No social distancing. At least in France, the police actually get their act together and as well as fining the organisers of the 2500+ rave, fined those attending.

Perhaps BoJo should be nicknamed 'Nero'. We need another national lockdown. A blind man could see that.

Yes. Led it seemed by one P. Corbyn Esq. judging by his crowing on Twitter later about ‘success’ and ‘only getting a PCN’... He really is a nutter that bloke, isn’t he.

The failure of the likes of Marr & Peston to do their job and hold the baffled/dishonest BJ to account is truly jaw-dropping, too.

[Simon B]

I also think the policy of delaying the second dose is immanently sensible in the current circumstances.

Ditto - it's eminently plausible that this could yield the least-worst outcome overall.

Providing someone (i.e. vaguely competent scientists) has run the numbers and found this approach to have a reasonable probability of damping down the epidemic faster than any other, then the authorities have a duty to act in the interests of the greatest number and pursue it.

Given that "starting from somewhere else" is not possible, the best could all too easily end up being the enemy of the good otherwise.

[Frances_iom]

...
The failure of the likes of Marr & Peston to do their job and hold the baffled/dishonest BJ to account is truly jaw-dropping, too

Aren't both with commercial stations - they don't want to upset potential future paymasters - the Beeb is already nobbled by threat of effective removal of licence money. There is no opposition worth its name in Parliament and most of the gutter press would comment favourably on the smell even if BJ f@rted in public.

[Simon B]

Yes. Led it seemed by one P. Corbyn Esq. judging by his crowing on Twitter later about ‘success’ and ‘only getting a PCN’... He really is a nutter that bloke, isn’t he.

One of the ironies is that thanks to his activities prior to all this (and maybe "not many people know that") he has a long track record of making demonstrably falsifiable predictions. This comes in the form of a long history as a weather forecaster (weatheraction.com) making confident long-term predictions based on wacky contrarian methods which turn out to be at least as inaccurate as everyone else's - for the very good reason that it remains an essentially impossible task other than in the vaguest of terms. Those attaching themselves to his proclamations seem to completely ignore that at the same time as berating their favourite bogeyman - Prof N Ferguson - for his arguably similar track record on CJD, Swine Flu etc.

Clearly it's a case of being highly selective about which person with a failure to accurately predict things to attach yourself to, depending on how much you like the message...

[Nick Armstrong]

Aren't both with commercial stations - they don't want to upset potential future paymasters - the Beeb is already nobbled by threat of effective removal of licence money.

Plus (and this was my area when in legal practice), they are subject to codes of guidance (Ofcom and, for Auntie, the BBC producers’ guidelines) which require, among other things, scrupulous balance in news & current affairs. This was all very well when politicians more or less told versions of the truth. But in the post-Trump era when blatant lies have become the norm, the regulatory guidelines oblige broadcasters still to accord self-evident untruths the credibility, respect and balance of former times. Producers & in-house lawyers run very scared of Ofcom etc. breaches (partly for the reason you mention, Frances_iom). To that extent I sympathise with Marr et al. as operating within this framework, they are emasculated when confronted by the bare-faced. The regulatory framework of broadcasting hasn’t kept up with the new post-truth world. It’s like observing the rules of cricket when one side is bowling grenades with the pins out.

[Serial_Apologist]

Plus (and this was my area when in legal practice), they are subject to codes of guidance (Ofcom and, for Auntie, the BBC producers’ guidelines) which require, among other things, scrupulous balance in news & current affairs. This was all very well when politicians more or less told versions of the truth. But in the post-Trump era when blatant lies have become the norm, the regulatory guidelines oblige broadcasters still to accord self-evident untruths the credibility, respect and balance of former times. Producers & in-house lawyers run very scared of Ofcom etc. breaches (partly for the reason you mention, Frances_iom). To that extent I sympathise with Marr et al. as operating within this framework, they are emasculated when confronted by the bare-faced. The regulatory framework of broadcasting hasn’t kept up with the new post-truth world. It’s like observing the rules of cricket when one side is bowling grenades with the pins out.

The experience of Marr on his own show this morning haplessly sniping away at the transparently blustering, bumbling, waffling Johnson this morning seemed like the last and lamest ever exercise in broadcasting futility, ending with "Well that's one Englishman talking to a Scot" from the Marr. The image of a mosquito attempting to draw blood from a rusty boiler in a scrap yard came most to mind.