I’m just going to put this in here even though it isn’t directly related to COVID, its more about it’s after-effects:
We took my daughter, who is 3 in Feb, to A&E last night as she had a fever and went quite limp. She’s had back-to-back viruses since the first week of September when she started nursery. Doctors checked and she had tachycardia (180) so they waited for her HR to go down before she was released. But they did say that her body constantly being hit by a series of viruses one after the other played a part here probably.
Knowing that she’s just one child in the nursery and seeing how each of the children going in and coming out of there look to have the same illnesses as my daughter and you can see how the lockdown has affected young children. I doubt my daughter is the first or will be the last child to visit A&E this autumn/winter.
Best of luck with your little one. I know ours has struggled with the mental side a little.
Big thing that the article is the impact of cuts to services not covered within the core NHS umbrella that have forced people onto the NHS.
Care homes and social care for example. Mental heath is another. You’ve basically got a whole raft of people that should be being cared for elsewhere but are being lumped onto the NHS, hospitals and ambulance services.
This might not be readable, as it is behind a pay wall. Delta is so transmissible that vaccination is doing little to stop the spread of the disease.
“A substantial Covid-19 outbreak that this week has sidelined the National Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators—despite the entire team being vaccinated—carries a warning for the coming months of professional sports: even with blanket immunization, pandemic disruptions are far from over.”
The indoor aspect is key. The air circulation of an ice rink is actually shockingly bad compared to the whole arena, and then of course there are the change rooms etc., a relatively small group of people in frequent close contact. Once it got in the circle, it must have had several days with more than one carrier building viral load.
It’s all kicking off here in Germany.
New law banning unvaxxed from public transport and workplaces is before parliament. It’ll have a hard time passing the Bundestag and would cause a major backlash in Saxony and other AFD strongholds.
The rest of the country are fed up with antivaxxers and both sides are becoming entrenched. All this without a stable government.
A winter of extreme discontent looms.
WHO recently estimated that globally, the Delta is now beyond dominant, 99%+ of cases, and the EU had a similar number for European cases a few weeks ago.
Delta, plus waning effectiveness over time. It’s this later factor that is making the vaccination numbers difficult to meaningfully interpret - what does it mean to have a population with x% fully vaccinated if y% of those have experienced significant decreases in immunity?
But despite that we are still seeing meaningful population level protection against transmission, just not enough to forgo non-pharmaceutical interventions like indoor masking when cases are on the rise no matter how many people want to present this issue as being over.
Are the European countries (and I include the UK on the basis of geography, not just the EU keke), going after the booster jabs for those who are already double dosed?
The UK is. Approximately 25% of the UK population (14 million) aged over 12 has now had a booster. It’s currently available for the clinically vulnerable and those aged over 40, providing it’s been 6 months since your second jab. You can book that appointment once it’s been 5 months. I’ll be booking mine next month.
Not sure if that’s UK wide, I’ll need to check where we are in Wales. I also want to get the booster ASAP. Lots of cases in my local area now. My partner has had 9 appointments cancelled this week through Covid. It has an ominous feeling of “when” rather than “if” about it.