Coronavirus update - NO MORE RESTRICTIONS

[xsnaggle]

Re: Coronavirus update

Care home residents and staff and over 80s first is the speculation according to Sky.

what about doctors and nurses?

[The Lone Gunman]

Re: Coronavirus update

Would you say it was as busy as at Christmas with the amount of people walking about? I presume theres much less people in the shops due to the 2m rule. Hence the queues.

No, nowhere near a normal Christmas crowd in the city centre, but then it is only November 9th.

I must confess the crowds took me by surprise today. Apart from a handful of days at the height of the summer, the city centre has been so quiet this year. I expected there would be a few more people about today than there were a fortnight ago before the firebreak lockdown, but I didn’t expect long queues outside shops and so many people buzzing around Queen Street.

[xsnaggle]

Re: Coronavirus update

No, nowhere near a normal Christmas crowd in the city centre, but then it is only November 9th.

I must confess the crowds took me by surprise today. Apart from a handful of days at the height of the summer, the city centre has been so quiet this year. I expected there would be a few more people about today than there were a fortnight ago before the firebreak lockdown, but I didn’t expect long queues outside shops and so many people buzzing around Queen Street.

The traffic in Cardiff and on major routes has been horrendous today compared with any time since March. It is far heavier than before the lockdown, and there is lots of traffic going up and down the A470, more than the new normal.

[Hilts]

Re: Coronavirus update

Yes more than your typical Monday.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/scenes-mayhem-cardiff-shoppers-pack-19250170

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

One of the UK's leading vaccine experts very excited by today's development according to the Guardian's rolling coverage - he forecasts life returning to normal in the spring

https://www.theguardian.com/world/li...0870a6e75faf8c

Good that some leading experts are excited by the latest developments unlike our First Minister. I was astounded at the stupid negative comments he made to the press yesterday. He was very negative about Pfizer's claims...." You would always want to read carefully what a particular competitor in this field says on their own behalf".

He doesn't realise that all Pfizer have done is report on the findings of a large double blind study, where the doctors involved did not know if patients were getting vaccine or a placebo until the code is broken. This is how medicines are tested worldwide. He really is anti-private industry.

Then he says "we will decide how to use it once it's available". Wales he says will be responsible for storage and distribution as well.

The facts are that supplies could possibly be available within the next 4-6 weeks. There is limited UK capacity for specialist distribution and storage at -80c, so he and Gethin had better get a move on and get a few logistic contracts sorted.

As for deciding who will get it first, well that will be sorted "once it's available". It needs sorting now. It's not as if you will be able to pop over to your GP for it.

Piss up and brewery come to mind

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

Good that some leading experts are excited by the latest developments unlike our First Minister. I was astounded at the stupid negative comments he made to the press yesterday. He was very negative about Pfizer's claims...." You would always want to read carefully what a particular competitor in this field says on their own behalf".

He doesn't realise that all Pfizer have done is report on the findings of a large double blind study, where the doctors involved did not know if patients were getting vaccine or a placebo until the code is broken. This is how medicines are tested worldwide. He really is anti-private industry.

Then he says "we will decide how to use it once it's available". Wales he says will be responsible for storage and distribution as well.

The facts are that supplies could possibly be available within the next 4-6 weeks. There is limited UK capacity for specialist distribution and storage at -80c, so he and Gethin had better get a move on and get a few logistic contracts sorted.

As for deciding who will get it first, well that will be sorted "once it's available". It needs sorting now. It's not as if you will be able to pop over to your GP for it.

Piss up and brewery come to mind

To be fair, I heard Johnson say that the UK Government's order for the vaccine included the devolved Governments and this article confirms that;-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54879535

so what Drakeford was saying was that it would be for the Welsh Government to manage once they had received their allocation, which I would hope would be the policy the UK Government is following.

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

To be fair, I heard Johnson say that the UK Government's order for the vaccine included the devolved Governments and this article confirms that;-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54879535

so what Drakeford was saying was that it would be for the Welsh Government to manage once they had received their allocation, which I would hope would be the policy the UK Government is following.

And Mark Drakeford did say that Wales share will be based on population, so approx 5% of UK. So he knows what he's likely to get which means he should be into planning the vaccination programme now.
Vaccines will happen, if not Pfizer's then AZ. They all work on RNA in similar ways so I expect the AZ one to be just as good, and with the same cold storage issues.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

And Mark Drakeford did say that Wales share will be based on population, so approx 5% of UK. So he knows what he's likely to get which means he should be into planning the vaccination programme now.
Vaccines will happen, if not Pfizer's then AZ. They all work on RNA in similar ways so I expect the AZ one to be just as good, and with the same cold storage issues.

I think it's a bit of a leap to suggest that any Government would be sitting on their hands doing nothing in the situation the Welsh Government now finds itself in, do you really believe that they will not start thinking of how it is allocated before the vaccine has been approved and is in their hands?

[Rjk]

Re: Coronavirus update

Good that some leading experts are excited by the latest developments unlike our First Minister. I was astounded at the stupid negative comments he made to the press yesterday. He was very negative about Pfizer's claims...." You would always want to read carefully what a particular competitor in this field says on their own behalf".

He doesn't realise that all Pfizer have done is report on the findings of a large double blind study, where the doctors involved did not know if patients were getting vaccine or a placebo until the code is broken. This is how medicines are tested worldwide. He really is anti-private industry.

Then he says "we will decide how to use it once it's available". Wales he says will be responsible for storage and distribution as well.

The facts are that supplies could possibly be available within the next 4-6 weeks. There is limited UK capacity for specialist distribution and storage at -80c, so he and Gethin had better get a move on and get a few logistic contracts sorted.

As for deciding who will get it first, well that will be sorted "once it's available". It needs sorting now. It's not as if you will be able to pop over to your GP for it.

Piss up and brewery come to mind

Drakeford is absolutely right to give a cautious message. nothing is certain with this vaccine yet, and some people are already talking as though the whole thing will be done and dusted within a few weeks.
this coupled with us coming out of lockdown could send a very bad message that people don't need to be as careful going about their day to day activities, which absolutely could lead to people dying. I would much prefer a leader who chooses their words carefully and thinks about the potential consequences of them than just waffles on like the UK prime minister.

if you think Drakeford can't organise a. piss up in a brewery then what do you think about Johnson ?

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

I think it's a bit of a leap to suggest that any Government would be sitting on their hands doing nothing in the situation the Welsh Government now finds itself in, do you really believe that they will not start thinking of how it is allocated before the vaccine has been approved and is in their hands?

To quote Drakeford. " We will decide how to use it once it's available"

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

Drakeford is absolutely right to give a cautious message. nothing is certain with this vaccine yet, and some people are already talking as though the whole thing will be done and dusted within a few weeks.
this coupled with us coming out of lockdown could send a very bad message that people don't need to be as careful going about their day to day activities, which absolutely could lead to people dying. I would much prefer a leader who chooses their words carefully and thinks about the potential consequences of them than just waffles on like the UK prime minister.

if you think Drakeford can't organise a. piss up in a brewery then what do you think about Johnson ?

He wasn't just being cautious he was more or less suggesting that the Pfizer data should not be trusted.

As for him thinking about potential consequences, he is easing lockdown in Merthyr a place with the highest incidence in UK because his government may lose credibility if he didn't. What could the potential consequences of that be?

Then you look at the shoppers in Cardiff yesterday and wonder if the blanket easing of lockdown is going to come back to bite him.

[Hilts]

Re: Coronavirus update

Johnson and his handling of this has been a disaster from day 1.

While I still think him and his front bench are a disaster and the worst govt in living memory I thought yesterday was his best performance by some distance.

I expected a fist pumping everything thing will soon be ok performance. But no very cautious , stick to the rules etc.

Very similar to Drakeford and Sturgeon.

Staggered really that anyone would criticise what Drakeford said. Particularly from Tories when the bloke they voted in did the same.

[Vindec]

Re: Coronavirus update

He wasn't just being cautious he was more or less suggesting that the Pfizer data should not be trusted.

As for him thinking about potential consequences, he is easing lockdown in Merthyr a place with the highest incidence in UK because his government may lose credibility if he didn't. What could the potential consequences of that be?

Then you look at the shoppers in Cardiff yesterday and wonder if the blanket easing of lockdown is going to come back to bite him.

I said something similar and there was a deadly hush except for one poster. The UK should act as one in a pandemic. Isn't it strange that, at the beginning of this pandemic, many people were criticising the government's lack of quarantine arrangements for those arriving in the UK from abroad when now we can't even adopt arrangements to quarantine parts of the UK?

The cessation of the firebreak in areas where there are high concentrations of the virus is shameful.

[Hilts]

Re: Coronavirus update

I think it's a bit of a leap to suggest that any Government would be sitting on their hands doing nothing in the situation the Welsh Government now finds itself in, do you really believe that they will not start thinking of how it is allocated before the vaccine has been approved and is in their hands?

Theyve probably more or less decided on how it will be allocated.