Pubs - last service to be re-opened

[Cambsred]

Around 40% of cases 'in hospital' @Redwurzel are patients who go to hospital for something else and contract covid in the hospital. Your neighbour is not alone.

The economic devastation is coming like a tsunami and it really worries me. I hope you all cope ok.

40% seems high, although my reading certainly directs between 10 and 20%. The more stress on a system the more likely hospital acquired covid is to occur unfortunately. Infection control is much easier with empty beds, space and high staffing levels I imagine.

This is one of the big risks of opening up while community transmission and hospital capacity is high. A single vaccination provides some protection, but if prevalence is high and your immunity is compromised by other illness you are still at risk. Hopefully the second wave of vaccinations will be as successful as the first, the 25% of population previously infected is correct and severe cases fall with this.

Then you can isolate better and target resources better to keep those most at risk/ vulnerability safe.

I hope they do use the numbers to guide decisions being made, as not getting control now could well lead to another repeat of last year when it is the last thing we need.

 

[Redwurzel]

I had an elderly in law relative who died in the April Covid Wave from Covid, she went into hospital for something else and then caught Covid there and never came out....alive

My elderly mum was also in hospital in the April wave she was placed in the cardiac ward where she was 1 of 2 paients and its a large hospital, so the hospital was trying to close the ward down I would guess and transfer resources to Covid Units. Luckily my mum did not get Covid but she was sent to a council owned care home who correctly refused her entry by physically blockading the doors to stop ambulance crews bringing her in from the hospital. Once she had a negative test result she was let in the next day. I get the impression it was a panic in April and some dodgy decisions were been made under a lot of pressure about who to protect the most.

 

[Laughing]

I would like to add a note of caution. We have only given 28% of the population the first shot. If we were to re-open everything before everyone in vulnerable groups have had their second shot, we might find that the efficacy of a single shot isn't what we hoped for. The 12 week gap has never been real world tested.

All the vulnerable groups won't have had both jabs until May, or so.

I would be all for giving those vulnerable groups their second jabs and leaving the relative youngsters until a bit later on if that helped.

 

[boroPE]

This also applies to the likes of Sports Direct/Primark/Card Factory and other shops that encourage you to browse and have very little floor space.

They are all closed. I walked through Middlesbrough town centre a couple of days ago its like a ghost town. Many shops wont reopen.

 

[Randy]

The pub owners and hotel financiers are fuming.
walked out on the government talks.

Hospitality bosses demand ALL venues must be able to reopen from April

Trade group UK Hospitality has submitted a document to the Prime Minister ahead of next week's announcement, urging venues to be allowed to trade in all Tiers other than Tier 4.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Anarchy in the dog & duck

About time the pubcos and breweries started opening their mouths. Bewildering why it's tool them this long.

 

[NYboro]

Do they not look at what's happening elsewhere? New York State bars and restaurants have been reopened for months, albeit at reduced capacity and NYC bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen for indoor dining last Friday. Hours are restricted as is capacity, but rates of infection are dropping.

 

[Randy]

Do they not look at what's happening elsewhere? New York State bars and restaurants have been reopened for months, albeit at reduced capacity and NYC bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen for indoor dining last Friday. Hours are restricted as is capacity, but rates of infection are dropping.

Lots of other countries running the same as New York. See also Florida.

 

[NYboro]

Lots of other countries running the same as New York. See also Florida.

Florida has crazy rates of infection - they've done basically nothing to stop the spread. New Yorkers, in general, are following the rules. When I've been into the City, it's been a few homeless people not wearing masks.

 

[bear66]

Do they not look at what's happening elsewhere? New York State bars and restaurants have been reopened for months, albeit at reduced capacity and NYC bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen for indoor dining last Friday. Hours are restricted as is capacity, but rates of infection are dropping.

Restaurants in Houston reopened about 2 weeks ago to a maximum of 50% capacity.

 

[Randy]

Florida has crazy rates of infection - they've done basically nothing to stop the spread. New Yorkers, in general, are following the rules. When I've been into the City, it's been a few homeless people not wearing masks.

To date, Florida has had about 76,000 hospitalizations and 28,800 deaths.

New York state, which has about 2 million fewer residents, has had 89,995 hospitalizations and 37,000 deaths.

With an older population compared to most other states too. I've also read that 1.9 million of Floridian residents have had both doses of the vaccine. Florida has also done a better job of protecting its care home residents.

 

[NYboro]

To date, Florida has had about 76,000 hospitalizations and 28,800 deaths.

New York state, which has about 2 million fewer residents, has had 89,995 hospitalizations and 37,000 deaths.

With an older population compared to most other states too. I've also read that 1.9 million of Floridian residents have had both doses of the vaccine. Florida has also done a better job of protecting its care home residents.

That's largely down to the terrible job that was done to start with in NY. We've been more-or-less stable for months and on a distinct downward trend right now. Cuomo is trying to cover up something about the way the care homes have been mishandled.

 

[Randy]

That's largely down to the terrible job that was done to start with in NY. We've been more-or-less stable for months and on a distinct downward trend right now. Cuomo is trying to cover up something about the way the care homes have been mishandled.

Yeah he is. I posted an article the other day on here. Do you think he's toast?

 

[NYboro]

Yeah he is. I posted an article the other day on here. Do you think he's toast?

He should be, but that's not the same thing. I should really ask my daughter - she works for the City and is far more into American politics than I am.

 

[Alvez_48]

I would like to add a note of caution. We have only given 28% of the population the first shot. If we were to re-open everything before everyone in vulnerable groups have had their second shot, we might find that the efficacy of a single shot isn't what we hoped for. The 12 week gap has never been real world tested.

All the vulnerable groups won't have had both jabs until May, or so.

I would be all for giving those vulnerable groups their second jabs and leaving the relative youngsters until a bit later on if that helped.

We really need to stop with this two dose b***ks. The government have made the right call on that. 2 doses is no excuse not to open the country.

 

[changingman]

Interesting poll in the I this morning, caution: small sample though.

Public in favour of opening schools- but pubs and restaurants should wait, i poll reveals

Only around one in 10 people thinks that the current lockdown measures should be lifted immediately even as cases return to October levels

inews.co.uk

One thing that I have taken from the pandemic is that there seems to be a decent number of people adverse to pubs (and to a lesser extent restaurants) full stop. Given the amount of time I used to spend in the pub prior to the pandemic probably had a blinkered view but it does seem there's quite a few people out there who never go in them or aren't in favour of them in general...weirdos

 

[Laughing]

We really need to stop with this two dose b***ks. View attachment 13860The government have made the right call on that. 2 doses is no excuse not to open the country.

If you say so Alvez, I have yet to see evidence of the efficacy of Pfizer after 3 months. Not sure it's b***ks. I would love to see our lives expand back into normality. I think everyone, even the more robust of us are starting to show signs of turning into loons after a year of lockdown.

My point was, and still is, Johnson does not have sufficient political capital to open too soon and go back into lockdown. He would be done if that were to happen. His decision making here is based on his career, not modelling, whatever those models say.

 

[Randy]

If you say so Alvez, I have yet to see evidence of the efficacy of Pfizer after 3 months. Not sure it's b***ks. I would love to see our lives expand back into normality. I think everyone, even the more robust of us are starting to show signs of turning into loons after a year of lockdown.

My point was, and still is, Johnson does not have sufficient political capital to open too soon and go back into lockdown. He would be done if that were to happen. His decision making here is based on his career, not modelling, whatever those models say.

Johnson is done anyways.
Does anybody seriously believe he'd win another election? You know once this virus stuff had calmed down a leadership contest is coming.

 

[Alvez_48]

If you say so Alvez, I have yet to see evidence of the efficacy of Pfizer after 3 months. Not sure it's b***ks. I would love to see our lives expand back into normality. I think everyone, even the more robust of us are starting to show signs of turning into loons after a year of lockdown.

My point was, and still is, Johnson does not have sufficient political capital to open too soon and go back into lockdown. He would be done if that were to happen. His decision making here is based on his career, not modelling, whatever those models say.

Ok b***ks was too strong a word sorry for that.
Johnson has literally no political capital left at all, right now.
He's hated by his base (the daily mail / telegraph).

We of course disagree on the efficacy of lockdown regardless but the point I was making (incoherently before coffee admittedly) was that we need to stop accepting goal posts being moved to different planets.

At Christmas it was 'vaccines rolled out then jobs a goodun, schools back in Feb and then easing from there'.

Now it's rubbish about 1,000 cases a day when we're testing nearly a million people a day and even with a false positive rate of 0.1% you'd still get that figure.

Lockdown has a terrible and brutal impact on all of our lives, the economic damage is here and it's just beginning. Giving the government any extra ammunition (such as we need to be careful we've only given 1 dose) to prolong the damage being done to people I cannot leave unchallenged.

Life has risk attached, we must accept risk. If the vaccines are effective (and all the data shows they are) then we must trust the tool (IT reference that I know you'll like) and get on with life.

 

[Capybara]

One thing that I have taken from the pandemic is that there seems to be a decent number of people adverse to pubs (and to a lesser extent restaurants) full stop. Given the amount of time I used to spend in the pub prior to the pandemic probably had a blinkered view but it does seem there's quite a few people out there who never go in them or aren't in favour of them in general...weirdos

This is partly why pubs have contributed very little to the outbreak. If you look at the numbers, when the pubs opened there was no effect on the number of new infections. There might have been some when the government encouraged people to go into restaurants but the figures remained low. It was only when they sent children back to school, encouraged people back to work, and students went to university that the figures really kicked up. The reason is that most people don't go in pubs - I rarely encountered a full pub when they reopened even with spacing measures in force - whereas most people do those other things and also go shopping. But let's close the pubs, that'll do the trick.

 

[Laughing]

Johnson says one thing and means another - nothng new there. He bends with the wind. He is a terrible leader and can be bullied and coerced into making decisions by the squeaky wheel.

To a certain extent we have to live with that till he is gone. It's not fair, it's not healthy, but what do you do.

On Randy's point about he has no political capital left. I am not so sure about that. There are still large swathes of the electorate that think he has done, and I quote, "A marvelous job". The vaccine rollout banked some good will and lots of folks can't remember what happened last year or are prepared to ignore it in favour of bolstering their ludicrous decision to vote for an idiot on a one item manifesto.

I do think he will be gone by the end of the year, but there is no way the tories are getting rid of him right now. His wording of irreversible opening of the economy was to assuage his back benchers. I think that is why he is going much slower than he did last year. If he blows those back benchers off, he will have a leadership challenge that he probably can't win.

I think I favour a more cautious approach to re-opening the economy, but, and it's a big one, open the right things first, not the revenue generating ones.

Get kids back in school
Get families back together
Get socialising back on the agenda

In roughly that order. Infection vectors and spreader events are a load of old nonsense. If people mix, they spread the virus. You have to balance the amount of mixing with possible rises in infections leading to hospitalizations. I am in no rush to get back to Primark for T-Shirt, I have managed to work out online asian sizing. I do however want to see my daughetrs, I do want to sit in a cafe enjoying a lunch or coffee and cake and I want to get back to rewarding myself for a hard week at work by taking my family for dinner at the weekend, or sitting in the pub on a sunday afternoon watching a bit of football and talking ***** with the other old men.