Coronavirus General Discussion

Better to miss seeing each other in person this Christmas than be missing someone for every Christmas thereafter.

But I can see how it's going to be very difficult to stop parents from seeing all of their grown-up children and their families over the Christmas period.
Particularly if they are living alone. I was just talking to a friend whose dad is in a locked down nursing home - confined to his room with no visitors because they have an outbreak - and whose mum is living on her own. There's just no way her and her brothers are not going to see their mother over Christmas. They're not going to leave her on her own, and not being able to see their dad is hard enough, there's no way they are pulling straws to see who gets to see their mum.

The reality is that a lot of people will find ways around the household mixing rules that they think are perfectly reasonable and safe, and once people have gotten in the habit of substituting their own judgement for the rules maintaining adherence will just get harder.

At the moment looking to book somewhere over from the 24th to 26th to get out of the flat for a few days, Hotels are taking bookings and just finalising where to go but will leave booking until the week before.

If there are only limited controls on booking hotels this could be a way round some of the constraints if affordable.

I will. A) why not hedge my bets? B) the vaccine isn't 100% efficacious, so there's still some risk C) those same measures also reduce the chance of getting flu

Not quite right - up to 90% effective after the second dose if the first was a half-dose. The headline 70% is two equal strength doses. Quite what the margin of error on the half dose trial is I wouldn't like to say since we're still talking small numbers here (only about 140 in total contracted the virus, with just over a hundred of those on the placebo).

Did you read my post? I said I would hug my family and friends AFTER all involved had been vaccinated (and you can assume it would be with their consent as well). I will be in one of the last groups vaccinated, so I'm talking about it being probably close to 2 years since I last hugged a friend by the time I actually get to do it. So no, I won't be waiting once all my family and friends are as protected as they can be. And you can bet at least 90% of people will think the same, because everyone's patience has a limit and once they have been given a vaccine people will undoubtedly relax, or stop listening.

Illness and death is a fact of life, and I'm not sure how any likelihood that more people who have vaccinated will die by hugging other vaccinated people than they would if they didn't hug anyone is any different to any other vaccine in existence, which doesn't require stopping close contact.

The whole point of the vaccine is that is will permit the close contact that is currently banned. It won't eradicate the virus entirely, nothing will, so if you think that the world is going to continue social distancing forever then you should think again, as that simply won't happen.

Humans (or most at least) thrive on physical contact and many will not want to continue living without it for more than the extremely long period it has already been. They will therefore either break the rules, or take the other way out, which is the problem many on this thread seem determined to sweep under the carpet. Perhaps because many don't live alone and therefore don't understand the damage that a lack of physical contact can do.

We are talking at cross-purposes, as I am referring to the period after vaccination (knowing full well the only people to receive it after me will be those in their teens and 20s who aren't in any higher priority group, so I am well down the list).

If he is saying you cannot have close contact AFTER vaccinations, then I ask again how you expect people will adhere to that, because that would be indefinite social distancing!

I said IF that is essentially what he is suggesting.

But regardless, it is a fundamental issue as to when social distancing will be relaxed, as I think people have unrealistic expectations of how much the majority of the general public will tolerate it once the vulnerable groups are vaccinated.

That disconnect between reality and the science is dangerous, as we have already seen the government's messaging fail to deal with what people are actually concerned about, and so you get widespread public outcry about stories like the woman who got arrested for picking up her mother out of a care home to take her home. And equally why you get so many illegal gatherings in homes and parks. If the government is going to ask people to keep distancing once the vaccinations have started, even temporarily, they need to have convincing messaging about why that is necessary, because as the minute all the reporting is about the vulnerable being protected, and so it will be inevitable that many people will see the trigger for relaxing as being when the vulnerable are vaccinated, not everyone.

Yes from one who had worked in Retail for almost all my working life(recently retired now) , retail has had the rough end of it with little praise really. At the best of times retail is a tough hard business. Covid has seen poorly paid workers still having to work really hard through the pandemic(particularly food and essential). These Christmas opening hours and very tough, but in some ways understandable to try and get some lost trade back.
To anyone who does work in retail, you have my respect. I finished my career in charity retail and they have had it tough too, losing valuable weeks trade and when open being inundated with donations due to the previous closures. Also having to quarantine donations in a limited storage areas. Well done to you all.

And those three households are Boris Johnson and his two best mates.

Regarding te Oxford vaccine, I was trying to understand what '90% effective' means and came across this in the BBC report. It seemed pretty reassuring, although it presumably doesn't include the vulnerable or elderly:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55040635

And it can be stores in a normal fridge so far easier to process and deal with. This is especially important for poorer countries with less infrastructure. I read that India which has massive cases would benefit from the easier procedures for giving the oxford vaccine.