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"New Pandemic" - Says Merkel

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  1. #1

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    "New Pandemic" - Says Merkel

    Might explain why HK is so paranoid about not letting the new variants in until there is a larger %age of the population being vaccinated.


    In talks that ran deep into the night, Merkel pushed the leaders of Germany's 16 states to take a tougher stance to fight the pandemic, reversing plans for a gradual re-opening of the economy agreed earlier this month after a sharp rise in the infection rate.

    "We are now basically in a new pandemic. The British mutation has become dominant," Merkel told a news conference.

    "Fundamentally, we face a new virus of the same kind but with very different characteristics. More deadly, more infectious, and infectious for longer."
    Germans can travel freely even amid the pandemic, but hotels and holiday resorts in the country are not allowed to rent rooms to tourists. That leaves travel abroad as the only option for those who are desperate to go on holidays.

    "We advise against all travel abroad," Merkel said.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...aster-n1261815

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  2. #2

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    Agree. Been sympathetic about the extended quarantine for travelers, but really it’s been all about keeping out the newer variants all along. How they manage the risk reasonably is of course open to debate. Policies really need to be holistic to reflect current realities and science, and not put all the hopes of ending the misery onto vaccines...only better policymaking will do that imho.

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  3. #3

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    Same thing in Canada, and new variants having severe effects in younger populations

    ‘It can take off’: Variants could drive spike in severe outcomes for young people.
    https://globalnews.ca/news/7713917/c...ases-variants/

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  4. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cornmeal:
    Same thing in Canada, and new variants having severe effects in younger populations

    ‘It can take off’: Variants could drive spike in severe outcomes for young people.
    https://globalnews.ca/news/7713917/c...ases-variants/
    A lot of speculation and little in the way of quantitive data.

    So let' say that it is indeed 55% more deadly for 'younger people' which seems to be younger than 60 by their reckoning. What does that take the CFR rate to for that age range?

    If it's 0.15% for all ages that makes it what 0.05% for under 60's? More than that? Less than that?

    And hospitalisations in that age range?

    And what if we split the risks out it into under 30's and over 30's. Or better still 1-10, 11-16, 17-25, 26-35 etc?

    It's always the same diatribe - "This could happen, that could happen" and never the relative probabilities involved.

    It's also very seldom that the actual context of what this 'scary news' means in real terms is even attempted.

    It's always about the medical community pushing ever more caution (which is naturally in their interest).
    Last edited by Sage; 24-03-2021 at 08:17 PM.

  5. #5

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    Policies really need to be holistic to reflect current realities and science, and not put all the hopes of ending the misery onto vaccines...only better policymaking will do that imho.
    I'm open to everything, but it seems that vaccines provide the only realistic way out, and I think we are lucky that the current vaccines seem to work well against most variants.

    The view from the UK is that some European countries have not had sufficiently strict lockdowns, and the vaccination rollout has been slow and un-necessarily politicized.

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sage:
    A lot of speculation and little in the way of quantitive data.

    So let' say that it is indeed 55% more deadly for 'younger people' which seems to be younger than 60 by their reckoning. What does that take the CFR rate to for that age range?

    If it's 0.15% for all ages that makes it what 0.05% for under 60's? More than that? Less than that?

    And hospitalisations in that age range?

    And what if we split the risks out it into under 30's and over 30's. Or better still 1-10, 11-16, 17-25, 26-35 etc?

    It's always the same diatribe - "This could happen, that could happen" and never the relative probabilities involved.

    It's also very seldom that the actual context of what this 'scary news' means in real terms is even attempted.

    It's always about the medical community pushing ever more caution (which is naturally in their interest).
    Unfortunately we are in a live experiment- there is no good data until after the event. In this case the event could have an extremely bad outcome for some (or many) people. Caution is warranted. The new variants have emerged and spread from premature opening up - in the U.K. - or through not doing enough as in Brazil.

    I am well and truly fed up of it all but not hopeful that we are on a clear path out of this yet- especially here in Hong Kong. Containment has worked here but seems to be the only thing that is working. The population seems unconvinced by vaccines so far.

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    Somehow that place does not look like Mörkelland


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    Meanwhile Australia's policy of short, sharp full lockdowns has proven a disaster, now with a total of zero cases in the community and the government just giving the green light for 75,000 fans at tomorrow nights Carlton-Collingwood game at the MCG, the biggest crowd anywhere in the world since COVID began, and 15,000 more than the capacity of Tokyo Olympic stadium. Our next target is full capacity (100,000) for ANZAC day (April 25th). According to the government chief health officer this is going to be pretty tricky and is really touch and go at the moment. But we are all hopeful we can achieve this goal

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...-further-eased

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    I'm open to everything, but it seems that vaccines provide the only realistic way out, and I think we are lucky that the current vaccines seem to work well against most variants.
    Agree they are part of the solution, and certainly in terms of the medical aspects of this pandemic, the only solution, but not the be all and end all. If we use the extreme thought experiment where vaccines are forced on everyone, what happens next? A lot of the misery comes from government measures, and from travel restrictions and quarantine requirements. The world won’t be completely vaccinated, so I assume those travel restrictions won’t end. Assuming there are no community cases locally, then on the bright side local business and activity can hopefully resume. If there are no active local cases then, however, then what was the need for vaccination in the first place? You can see that in Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, and various other places.

    So the only relevance for vaccination in areas that better managed to keep out Covid is to travel, and that’s going to be a lot more difficult to manage considering the variation in vaccines available to different places, the varying efficacy, the need for agreements, and a clear sense of the risk of imported cases (despite vaccination) and measures to manage it in case of triggering community spread-> remembering no vaccine is 100% and lots of people are taking something that might be less than that -> then you’re back to calibrating the risk you’re prepared to take. In reality we’re not sure how long the vaccines last, new vulnerable groups will constantly develop, and meanwhile the virus is constantly mutating.

    That’s the reason, even since last year, I’ve suggested clear-sighted policymaking is in even greater need than this still very welcome availability of vaccines. Mainly because we’re fortunate in Hong Kong not to be afflicted by widespread disease.

    My own preference for containment has been short, sharp lockdowns (like mentioned for Australia above), and for protection to be directed to high risk groups, but of course the former isn’t preferred by everyone, and the latter is endangered by the prospect of variants being more deadly not just to the older or chronically ill.

    To be clear, all for people getting vaccinated, especially for their own protection, and often also that for others, but they need to go in with their eyes open that it doesn’t look like a sufficient condition for the resumption of normal life.

    Sage’s previous suggestion of just reopening after giving everyone a chance to take the vaccines seems probably the most realistic route to those wanting “normal life”, but that’s in the realm of policymaking, not “vaccinating everyone”.

    Just my opinion.

    TLDR - the risk is not 0 and never will be 0, not even with vaccines, so the way out is through policymaking and international agreements (not the HK government’s knee-jerk measures without an integrated risk capacity measure)
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  10. #10

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    Looks like the public didn't want any of that shit

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...own-in-germany

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