Coronavirus Thread (Off Topic, Politics) (67 Viewers)

[chiefdave]

Would love to hear regular vaccination statistics to keep the light at the end of the tunnel in sight.

If they can maintain the current level, which will be an issue of supply as the infrastructure is now in place, we could hit the governments 2m a week which I was very sceptical of. The other issue will be maintaining the level of 1st dose vaccinations when they hit the point at which they have to start giving 2nd doses.

Dads finally got his appointment. not until next Thursday but at least its in the diary now. Hopefully my Mums won't be too far behind, she's a bit further down the priority list.

 

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[Brighton Sky Blue]

If they can maintain the current level, which will be an issue of supply as the infrastructure is now in place, we could hit the governments 2m a week which I was very sceptical of. The other issue will be maintaining the level of 1st dose vaccinations when they hit the point at which they have to start giving 2nd doses.

Dads finally got his appointment. not until next Thursday but at least its in the diary now. Hopefully my Mums won't be too far behind, she's a bit further down the priority list.

Hancock confused me when he implied 7 x 200,000 = 2 million. But yes seems to be working well so far and we have also given 400,000 second jabs in the same time.

 

[Liquid Gold]

If they can maintain the current level, which will be an issue of supply as the infrastructure is now in place, we could hit the governments 2m a week which I was very sceptical of. The other issue will be maintaining the level of 1st dose vaccinations when they hit the point at which they have to start giving 2nd doses.

Dads finally got his appointment. not until next Thursday but at least its in the diary now. Hopefully my Mums won't be too far behind, she's a bit further down the priority list.

I’m hopeful that as capacity increases they can divert a fair portion of it to giving out the second dose so we can maintain the first. Would be incredible if we can do 2m first and 2m second a week.

 

[shmmeee]

Sat watching the missus do her online training to become a vaccinator.

One of the questions is along the lines of “who does the health department seek advice from for vaccination policy” followed by a bunch of random govt departments.

Why is this needed? Why are we putting this barrier in front of people who want to give the vaccine? What purpose does it serve? And this is the COVID vaccine specific stuff.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Sat watching the missus do her online training to become a vaccinator.

One of the questions is along the lines of “who does the health department seek advice from for vaccination policy” followed by a bunch of random govt departments.

Why is this needed? Why are we putting this barrier in front of people who want to give the vaccine? What purpose does it serve? And this is the COVID vaccine specific stuff.

Two things needed

1. Criminal background check
2. Do they know or can they be easily trained to administer it

Done

 

[fernandopartridge]

Sat watching the missus do her online training to become a vaccinator.

One of the questions is along the lines of “who does the health department seek advice from for vaccination policy” followed by a bunch of random govt departments.

Why is this needed? Why are we putting this barrier in front of people who want to give the vaccine? What purpose does it serve? And this is the COVID vaccine specific stuff.

I think the number of different agencies and bodies are all ultimately to provide a shield to ministers from genuine accountability, e.g. Hancock blaming Public Health England for the lack of testing early on in the pandemic.

 

[clint van damme]

Sat watching the missus do her online training to become a vaccinator.

One of the questions is along the lines of “who does the health department seek advice from for vaccination policy” followed by a bunch of random govt departments.

Why is this needed? Why are we putting this barrier in front of people who want to give the vaccine? What purpose does it serve? And this is the COVID vaccine specific stuff.

There was a GP on the radio the other day saying what absolute bollocks it is.
People who have given thousands of vaccinations during their career are being delayed giving out covid vaccines because they have to complete this course

 

[shmmeee]

I think the number of different agencies and bodies are all ultimately to provide a shield to ministers from genuine accountability, e.g. Hancock blaming Public Health England for the lack of testing early on in the pandemic.

Fine. But why does anyone giving the vaccine need to know this. As in is tested on it and must get a right answer before they are allowed to deliver the vaccine?

We seem to be a stickler for rules in all the wrong places.

 

[hill83]

Fine. But why does anyone giving the vaccine need to know this. As in is tested on it and must get a right answer before they are allowed to deliver the vaccine?

We seem to be a stickler for rules in all the wrong places.

Everything is about blame. So everyone covers their arse.

 

[LastGarrison]

I hear that George Elliott is really struggling so have reached out to the Uni’s to see if there are any of their students on their healthcare courses who would be happy to put themselves forward to volunteer on the bank.

Not just medical or nursing students either, this includes physio, dietetics, social work, biomed etc.

Also looks like Cov Uni is going to be continuing online up until Easter as well (exempt courses apart).

 

[Astute]

Yeah, I keep hearing different numbers being mentioned (think some people are adding first and second doses together). Great news that 400k of those have even had a second dose. Fingers crossed with those new hubs up and running daily dose numbers will continue to increase (subject to batch checked stock I’d imagine)

Father in law got his first jab just under 3 weeks ago. A week later he got told it was going to be weeks until he got the second one. A couple of days ago he got contacted again to be told it is happening today.

Great news for him. He isn't your normal 89 year old. He had holidays booked all over the world. Had just got back from Marrakech when the virus hit. The plan last year was for him to get scaffolding up so he could paint the outside of his house.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

I hear that George Elliott is really struggling so have reached out to the Uni’s to see if there are any of their students on their healthcare courses who would be happy to put themselves forward to volunteer on the bank.

Not just medical or nursing students either, this includes physio, dietetics, social work, biomed etc.

Also looks like Cov Uni is going to be continuing online up until Easter as well (exempt courses apart).

It’s hard to know the capacity, but I’d have thought they have more than 73 beds and 7 ventilators?

 

[CCFCSteve]

Everything is about blame. So everyone covers their arse.

Not knocking public sector in general (especially not front line across the board who’s all stepped up) but this just smacks of the crazy bureaucratic stuff their senior management want covering off and see as essential these days (large multi nationals will be the same). This is a crisis FFS, cut the crap out and get on with it*

*saying that on the back of the roll out starting really well, but how much of that is because people will go above and beyond to help out, even when these ridiculous hurdles are put in their way ?! Same with testing in the early days.. a lack of willingness to accept assistance from unis/private labs and focus on keeping it centralised...which got there eventually but building those super hubs/labs was always going to take time

ps thats not defending stuff like some of the private sector mess of tracing !

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Not knocking public sector in general (especially not front line across the board who’s all stepped up) but this just smacks of the crazy bureaucratic stuff their senior management want covering off and see as essential these days (large multi nationals will be the same). This is a crisis FFS, cut the crap out and get on with it*

*saying that on the back of the roll out starting really well, but how much of that is because people will go above and beyond to help out, even when these ridiculous hurdles are put in their way ?! Same with testing in the early days.. a lack of willingness to accept assistance from unis/private labs and focus on keeping it centralised...which got there eventually but building those super hubs/labs was always going to take time

ps thats not defending stuff like some of the private sector mess of tracing !

On the other hand Steve I saw the articles about food hampers say that a private company ‘had a responsibility to keep children fed’. Utterly bizarre for the government to delegate something like that to a private entity

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Half the issue has been we haven't used or developed the public systems already in place.

Oh, as for recruitment, I'd rather they didn't cut corners and it took longer. You start cutting in a seemingly meaningless area, where else do you?

There were stories during the last census of people falling their checks *after* they'd started. Don't want similar...

 

[Nick]

Got to love hearing the news when they sound so shocked that people are standing in line at Costa or taking the piss at supermarkets.

Why don't they have any common sense? Went through coundon yesterday and all the shops are open, even the discount store and florist.

 

[CCFCSteve]

On the other hand Steve I saw the articles about food hampers say that a private company ‘had a responsibility to keep children fed’. Utterly bizarre for the government to delegate something like that to a private entity

100% agree. It was disgusting and if correct/widespread (assuming not a one off), I said yesterday I’d pull their contract. At the end of the day it reflects badly on the government and they’ve had enough of bad PR on school meals already so you’d hope it will be sorted and quickly !

 

[CCFCSteve]

Half the issue has been we haven't used or developed the public systems already in place.

Oh, as for recruitment, I'd rather they didn't cut corners and it took longer. You start cutting in a seemingly meaningless area, where else do you?

There were stories during the last census of people falling their checks *after* they'd started. Don't want similar...

It’s a fine balance though NW, nobody would want to cut corners...especially when deployment of vaccines/medicines is involved but as discussed last week there appeared to be a load of irrelevant training modules/forms involved in signing up. Tailor it/streamline it and make it applicable/relevant to the specific role you’ll be undertaking. That’s all

 

[CCFCSteve]

Got to love hearing the news when they sound so shocked that people are standing in line at Costa or taking the piss at supermarkets.

Why don't they have any common sense? Went through coundon yesterday and all the shops are open, even the discount store and florist.

Go home with a nice bunch of flowers and some soon to be out of date chocolates for the missus ?!

ps although transmission rates in shops is supposedly low they need to cut down the list of essential shops/takeaways (as much to reenforce message to public of the severity of the situation). Case numbers based on last couple of days suggest we’re hopefully moving in a the right direction at last but still a long way to go

 

[Deleted member 5849]

It’s a fine balance though NW, nobody would want to cut corners...especially when deployment of vaccines/medicines is involved but as discussed last week there appeared to be a load of irrelevant training modules/forms involved in signing up. Tailor it/streamline it and make it applicable/relevant to the specific role you’ll be undertaking. That’s all

But, again, who wants a racist responsible for vaccinating people? What's irrelevant to one, isn't to another. In theory, if you're already employed by the NHS, you wouldn't have to do them again anyway... unless recruitment has been outsourced to somebody like Crapita, anyway. They're mostly things you can dash off, anyway. You could argue if somebody doesn't have the patience to sit down and do an online module for an hour, they won't have the patience to vaccinate thousands of people, day after day after day, after day...

You circumvent some procedures, the culture ends up you circumvent others. It's a slippery slope...

 

[chiefdave]

It’s hard to know the capacity, but I’d have thought they have more than 73 beds and 7 ventilators?
View attachment 18238

Its listed as a 352 bed hospital. Although interesting to note that older listings from a few years back show 440 beds so seems there has been a cut. There's a Telegraph article from April saying critical care capacity is being increased and can go up as high as 42 beds.

If there's an issue its more likley to be staff shortages due to number of people off sick.

 

[We'll_live_and_die]

Its listed as a 352 bed hospital. Although interesting to note that older listings from a few years back show 440 beds so seems there has been a cut. There's a Telegraph article from April saying critical care capacity is being increased and can go up as high as 42 beds.

If there's an issue its more likley to be staff shortages due to number of people off sick.

So by keeping hospital staff healthy (vaccine), GE is actually no where near capacity.

Its definitely not a nice task to decide who gets the vacccine first, but I think there would’ve been sense in anyone going into hospital either for treatment or work to be near the top of the list.

 

[shmmeee]

But, again, who wants a racist responsible for vaccinating people? What's irrelevant to one, isn't to another. In theory, if you're already employed by the NHS, you wouldn't have to do them again anyway... unless recruitment has been outsourced to somebody like Crapita, anyway. They're mostly things you can dash off, anyway. You could argue if somebody doesn't have the patience to sit down and do an online module for an hour, they won't have the patience to vaccinate thousands of people, day after day after day, after day...

You circumvent some procedures, the culture ends up you circumvent others. It's a slippery slope...

Honestly?

If they do it safely and for everyone, get them in. I couldn’t care less about their views.

The wider point isn’t the raft of compulsory training all NHS staff go through, it’s the questions asked on the module specifically designed for the COVID vaccine. Questions about safety and knowledge of things they might be asked about the vaccine fair enough, the inner workings of Whitehall, not so much.

 

[shmmeee]

So by keeping hospital staff healthy (vaccine), GE is actually no where near capacity.

Its definitely not a nice task to decide who gets the vacccine first, but I think there would’ve been sense in anyone going into hospital either for treatment or work to be near the top of the list.

Healthcare workers were at the top of the list.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

If they do it safely and for everyone, get them in. I couldn’t care less about their views.

And if they decide to push minorities down the queue / coincidentally run out of vaccine at that point? It's an extreme example, but you have to cover it.

How about failing to support their co-workers if they're of a different race?

Again, for an hour of somebody's time, if you can't be bothered to do that, you're probably not the kind of person we should be trusting with something so important, as what else won't you be bothered with?

 

[shmmeee]

And if they decide to push minorities down the queue / coincidentally run out of vaccine at that point? It's an extreme example, but you have to cover it.

Not to be a dick, but if I’m a white nationalist determined to train as a vaccinator to fulfil my evil plan of slightly delaying vaccination for minorities, I reckon I might be able to lie on the online quiz.

As BSB said, we have CRB checks already to weed out the deplorables.

Generally I’m not a “health and safety gawn mad” type of guy, but there needs to be a recognition of urgency and exceptionalism in a crisis IMO.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Not to be a dick, but if I’m a white nationalise determined to train as a vaccinator to fulfil my evil plan of slightly delaying vaccination for minorities, I reckon I might be able to lie on the online quiz.

Or complain about having to do it, and insist that it's unecessary?

As BSB said, we have CRB checks already to weed out the deplorables.

And on the census, where recruitment was shortcut, we had people going into vulnerable peoples' flats and houses... to be swiftly fired a couple of weeks later, when the DBS checks (they were CRB then, I think) came through.

 

[shmmeee]

Or complain about having to do it, and insist that it's unecessary?

Are you calling me a white nationalist?

Not sure if you’ve seen these training modules, but they literally tell you at the end what the right answers are and make you go back and click them. It’s not weeding anything out, it’s not even effective as lodging policy in memory. You can pass the modules without even looking at the questions.

I mean on the flip side it’s also not a serious impediment to anyone other than time wasting. But still. Reminds me of the questions my missus is studying for her citizenship test. Just completely irrelevant.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Not sure if you’ve seen these training modules

Seen them? I've done some of them

And it's so little effort, I don't see what the fuss is all about. What it does is weed out the people who decide they don't need to bother at all, and those are the people you want weeded out.

(I refer you back to the fact that, unless they've completely cocked up the recruitment process - I know, I know... people already in healthcare ought to have already have done the generic ones, so wouldn't have to do them again - complaining that people have to repeat something is a very different thing to not requiring anybody to do them. As an aside, I'm reminded of a face-to-face equal opportunities course I went on, where somebody had left, then come back two months later, so was obliged to do the course again. They managed to wind up the course leader very effectively by answering all his questions verbatum in a very bored tone of voice, and saying everything he intended to say, just before he got to it.)

 

[Otis]

Why wouldn't you want to go to KFC?

Because I'm a vegetarian?

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Because I'm a vegetarian?

You'd have got on great at the KFC I went to once, that had run out of chicken...

 

[Skybluefaz]

Because I'm a vegetarian?

They sell chips

 

[Ccfcisparks]

Do you all think its possible we will have some level of restrictions for the foreseeable future, even if a large majority of the population are vaccinated?

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Do you all think its possible we will have some level of restrictions for the foreseeable future, even if a large majority of the population are vaccinated?

The point all along has been to prevent NHS overwhelm. If enough people are vaccinated to remove that possibility then I don’t see why restrictions are necessary. We must not allow the unnecessary to become normalised

 

[chiefdave]

Think Priti Patel has been reading the forum. After the talk on here yesterday of the rules being easy to follow she said at last nights briefing the rules are "very simple and clear".

This was swiftly followed by her talking about how people can enjoy outdoor recreation. That’s outdoor recreation that was allowed under tier 4 but is not allowed under the current national lockdown.

According to today’s Guardian the rules have changed at least 64 times since March, that's a change every 4.5 days on average.