The big Coronavirus thread

Stevo_666

darkhairedlord said:

Stevo_666 said:

darkhairedlord said:

kingstongraham said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/10/hmrc-wave-fines-taxpayers-file-late-returns-due-covid

Unless you work in an ICU, who the hell hasn't had enough time over the last 6 months to do their tax return?

bugg3r, thanks for the reminder!

I did mine just over week back. Would have done it sooner but know that I would owe money so no point filing months in advance (although never leave it until the last minute in case something crops up like missing info that you need to get hold of).

I have to supervise the wife doing hers. That normally involves her watching something dire on the telly for a few hours.

Thought you said your OH was below the threshold to pay tax?

Stevo_666

On another point, Germany are on the naughty step for trying to buy their own vaccines:
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/10/germany-accused-breaching-eu-rules-purchasing-supplies-vaccine/

kingstonian

Stevo_666 said:

On another point, Germany are on the naughty step for trying to buy their own vaccines:
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/10/germany-accused-breaching-eu-rules-purchasing-supplies-vaccine/

The whole article is behind a paywall, but I’ve seen mention of this in a few different places. Wonder if the EU will have the balls to do anything about it, or if because it is Germany they’ll let it slide.

Stevo_666

Heres a cut n paste:
Germany purchased an extra 30 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine while trumpeting the benefits of an EU-wide purchasing strategy

German Health Minister Jens Spahn has come under intense pressure from both the media and the opposition inside Germany over his ministry’s vaccine purchase scheme
Germany has come in for criticism over a bilateral vaccine deal with Pfizer/Biontech to secure an extra 30 million doses of its vaccine at a time when talks between Brussels and the pharma firms were still ongoing.

Berlin ordered the extra doses of the vaccine back in September at a time when it was trumpeting the virtues of a common EU purchasing strategy during its role as rotating president of the European Union.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn confirmed last week that he had purchased an extra 30 million doses of the vaccine in a separate bilateral agreement with the company.

The terms of the EU’s vaccine strategy, published in June, state that the 27 member states agree “not to launch their own procedures for advance purchase of that vaccine with the same manufacturers.”

The pact was supposed to be an act of solidarity towards smaller members with weaker purchasing power.

The European Commission on Friday avoided being drawn on whether Germany had breached the terms of the agreement, with a spokesman asking reporters to address the question to German authorities.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said though that the member states had agreed that “there will be no parallel negotiations or parallel contracts.”

A report in Politico suggests that Germany purchased the additional doses of the comparatively expensive Pfizer/Biontech vaccine after failing to convince other EU states back in September of the need to buy a further 100 million doses.

Biontech is based in the German city of Mainz and received €375 million in funding from the German government in September to help accelerate its research into a corona vaccine.

The EU eventually signed a deal to purchase 200 million doses of the vaccine in November. On Friday it announced plans to extend its purchases of the vaccine to a total of 600 million doses.

Mr Spahn has come under intense pressure from both the media and the opposition inside Germany over his ministry’s vaccine purchase scheme.

The Social Democrats (SPD), who are junior partner’s to the Christian Democrats (CDU) in government, accused Mr Spahn (CDU) of being responsible for “chaos” due to his alleged failure to purchase adequate doses of the Pfizer vaccine for the country's 83 million residents.

SPD Finance Minister Olaf Scholz last week demanded answers from Mr Spahn on 24 separate points including one asking “why doses which were not bought up by the EU were not instead ordered for Germany.”

Mr Scholz is the SPD’s pick to run for Chancellor in September’s federal election. The CDU responded furiously to the SPD’s attack, accusing their coalition partner of switching into campaigning mode during a time of national crisis.

“The SPD have strayed from the path of rationality,” CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said. “This is counterproductive and only sows more doubt during our struggle with the pandemic.”

kingstonian

Thanks for the copy n paste

darkhairedlord

Stevo_666 said:

darkhairedlord said:

Stevo_666 said:

darkhairedlord said:

kingstongraham said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/10/hmrc-wave-fines-taxpayers-file-late-returns-due-covid

Unless you work in an ICU, who the hell hasn't had enough time over the last 6 months to do their tax return?

bugg3r, thanks for the reminder!

I did mine just over week back. Would have done it sooner but know that I would owe money so no point filing months in advance (although never leave it until the last minute in case something crops up like missing info that you need to get hold of).

I have to supervise the wife doing hers. That normally involves her watching something dire on the telly for a few hours.

Thought you said your OH was below the threshold to pay tax?

she is, but earns over £1000 so still has to do a tax return.

Stevo_666

darkhairedlord said:

Stevo_666 said:

darkhairedlord said:

Stevo_666 said:

darkhairedlord said:

kingstongraham said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/10/hmrc-wave-fines-taxpayers-file-late-returns-due-covid

Unless you work in an ICU, who the hell hasn't had enough time over the last 6 months to do their tax return?

bugg3r, thanks for the reminder!

I did mine just over week back. Would have done it sooner but know that I would owe money so no point filing months in advance (although never leave it until the last minute in case something crops up like missing info that you need to get hold of).

I have to supervise the wife doing hers. That normally involves her watching something dire on the telly for a few hours.

Thought you said your OH was below the threshold to pay tax?

she is, but earns over £1000 so still has to do a tax return.

Ah, OK - self employed.

morstar

Infection rates do seem to be levelling off. Definitely not accelerating as they were.

The lumps and bumps of bank holidays and weekends are now flushing through the data.

If that is the case, got to hope the hospitalisation peak isn’t too far away.

Hope the school return doesn’t drive a new climb. Guess we’ll find out in the next week or two.

DeVlaeminck

Difficult to disentangle the changes to normal behaviour over Xmas isn't it.

Does the schools being closed and more people being off work compensate for family get togethers and pre Xmas shopping etc ?

pblakeney

DeVlaeminck said:

Difficult to disentangle the changes to normal behaviour over Xmas isn't it.

Does the schools being closed and more people being off work compensate for family get togethers and pre Xmas shopping etc ?

I think we all knew on here that the lax Christmas period was asking for trouble.
BJ can't make hard decisions until forced to.

pblakeney

DeVlaeminck said:

Difficult to disentangle the changes to normal behaviour over Xmas isn't it.

Does the schools being closed and more people being off work compensate for family get togethers and pre Xmas shopping etc ?

I think we all knew on here that the lax Christmas period was asking for trouble.
BJ can't make hard decisions until forced to.

morstar

DeVlaeminck said:

Difficult to disentangle the changes to normal behaviour over Xmas isn't it.

Does the schools being closed and more people being off work compensate for family get togethers and pre Xmas shopping etc ?

I think the whole Christmas meet ups are fuel on the fire.

Schools are an easy infection bubble but they are largely part of a closed system. I.e. the same x individuals and their families and their direct networks are largely a static pool of infection candidates. Every day new interactions occur at shops etc. but many of these are very transient and lower infection risk.

Throw in Christmas and you introduce millions of new high quality transmission interactions across many regions. e.g. see what happened at Unis in September.

Then the testing numbers are suppressed then amplified over bank holiday quiet periods and next working day rebounds. I do think the media have been a bit alarmist not recognising this when reporting bigger, scarier numbers. The underlying numbers are pretty bad in their own right without need to do this. This weeks numbers compared to last week will give us a much clearer picture of how infections are growing.

ugo.santalucia

morstar said:

Infection rates do seem to be levelling off. Definitely not accelerating as they were.

The lumps and bumps of bank holidays and weekends are now flushing through the data.

If that is the case, got to hope the hospitalisation peak isn’t too far away.

Hope the school return doesn’t drive a new climb. Guess we’ll find out in the next week or two.

I hope you are right and probably you are, but where is the evidence?

morstar

ugo.santalucia said:

morstar said:

Infection rates do seem to be levelling off. Definitely not accelerating as they were.

The lumps and bumps of bank holidays and weekends are now flushing through the data.

If that is the case, got to hope the hospitalisation peak isn’t too far away.

Hope the school return doesn’t drive a new climb. Guess we’ll find out in the next week or two.

I hope you are right and probably you are, but where is the evidence?

In the test by specimen date data. It's not yet a clear picture due to the lumps and bumps over bank holidays and the lag to current data. However, by the time both last weeks and this weeks data is complete, I'd be surprised if infection rates are climbing significantly if not starting to fall. At the very least, I'd say with confidence that the rate of increase is decreasing.

rick_chasey

Have to say I am disappointing (but not surprised), a year on, the gov't hasn't got a grip on what behaviours actually spread the disease and what doesn't.

The level of activity this lockdown is obviously much higher as now firms have law abiding 'measures' to reduce the spread but more importantly (for them), stay open.

I feel like focusing on rozzers going after women on their own on a park bench misses the main cause of transmission from what I can see; being indoors with others.

All those wide angle lens shots of people in parks is all very well, but how many of them are actually spreading rona between each other?

kingstongraham

Chris Whitty this morning, basically saying "don't meet anyone you don't have to". Any interaction has increased in risk to that same interaction 6 months ago - outdoors is still less risky than indoors, and shorter interaction is less risky than longer.

Out of my cell for my daily exercise yesterday, there were a lot of people about, but that's good, isn't it? Most were in groups of two or family groups.

briantrumpet

rick_chasey said:

Have to say I am disappointing (but not surprised), a year on, the gov't hasn't got a grip on what behaviours actually spread the disease and what doesn't.

The level of activity this lockdown is obviously much higher as now firms have law abiding 'measures' to reduce the spread but more importantly (for them), stay open.

I feel like focusing on rozzers going after women on their own on a park bench misses the main cause of transmission from what I can see; being indoors with others.

All those wide angle lens shots of people in parks is all very well, but how many of them are actually spreading rona between each other?

Indeed, re indoors activities. And still ventilation is still barely making into daily exhortations. My assumption is that any place indoors with others heightens risk, much more so if it's not well ventilated, and again much more so if you spend a length of time there more than a few minutes.

rick_chasey

So anecdote.

I was scheduled to have a xray on my recovering broken wrist middle of next week.

Just got a phone call; my local hospital is struggling so much with rona that my xray and subsequent surgeon appointment is now a phone call. The entire outpatient section is shut.

Now, what the guy can do without the x-ray is anyone's guess.

kingstonian

kingstongraham said:

Chris Whitty this morning, basically saying "don't meet anyone you don't have to". Any interaction has increased in risk to that same interaction 6 months ago - outdoors is still less risky than indoors, and shorter interaction is less risky than longer.

Out of my cell for my daily exercise yesterday, there were a lot of people about, but that's good, isn't it? Most were in groups of two or family groups.

At the weekend I took one of my sons and our dog for a walk in Richmond Park - saw lots of couples walking, very few groups of 3 or 4 and all of them appeared to be families. All groups were keeping clear of each other too. From that not particularly scientific experiment I hope it might mean the message is getting through.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

All those wide angle lens shots of people in parks is all very well, but how many of them are actually spreading rona between each other?

Pedant point.
You use a zoom lens to make people look closer together. 😉

rick_chasey

mea cupla.

I know very little about cameras...

orraloon

rick_chasey said:

mea cupla.

I know very little about cameras...

Or indeed Latin. 😉 IGMC...

DeVlaeminck

morstar said:

DeVlaeminck said:

Difficult to disentangle the changes to normal behaviour over Xmas isn't it.

Does the schools being closed and more people being off work compensate for family get togethers and pre Xmas shopping etc ?

I think the whole Christmas meet ups are fuel on the fire.

Schools are an easy infection bubble but they are largely part of a closed system. I.e. the same x individuals and their families and their direct networks are largely a static pool of infection candidates. Every day new interactions occur at shops etc. but many of these are very transient and lower infection risk.

Throw in Christmas and you introduce millions of new high quality transmission interactions across many regions. e.g. see what happened at Unis in September.

I wouldn't say schools are a closed system - hundreds of kids, parents working at different places, siblings at nurseries or possibly different schools, etc.

morstar

DeVlaeminck said:

morstar said:

DeVlaeminck said:

Difficult to disentangle the changes to normal behaviour over Xmas isn't it.

Does the schools being closed and more people being off work compensate for family get togethers and pre Xmas shopping etc ?

I think the whole Christmas meet ups are fuel on the fire.

Schools are an easy infection bubble but they are largely part of a closed system. I.e. the same x individuals and their families and their direct networks are largely a static pool of infection candidates. Every day new interactions occur at shops etc. but many of these are very transient and lower infection risk.

Throw in Christmas and you introduce millions of new high quality transmission interactions across many regions. e.g. see what happened at Unis in September.

I wouldn't say schools are a closed system - hundreds of kids, parents working at different places, siblings at nurseries or possibly different schools, etc.

I accept it’s a woolly use of the term. I agree there is an extended network but that network is largely static (however extended it may be).

Xmas introduced a dynamic extension of those networks.

For example, most of us in lockdown are interacting largely within a set of fairly limited people / organisations. Christmas and Uni returns are two examples of a significant increase in dynamic changes to interaction groups.

I agree schools are not truly closed systems.

pblakeney

Does it help to think in terms of six degrees of separation?

Pross

rick_chasey said:

Have to say I am disappointing

You said it!

Pross

My sister is a nursery worker. They've been told not to wear masks as it scares the children and the work involves picking up kids, having them wiping their snotty faces on them and their clothes. Problem is she's a single mum and shares a house with my parents who are in their 70s. I'm not sure where nursery workers fall into the vaccination categories, probably down in level 10 based on age group only.

rick_chasey

If the cap fits.

rick_chasey

Big pet peeve currently; when i'm out giving the toddler a run around in the local paid for garden.

We go as early as possible to avoid the crowds and for the most part it's absolutely fine.

Only you'll get couples with children of their own heading over to wherever your toddler is playing and *encouraging* their kids to play where yours is.

I mean FFS. F*ck off somewhere else till we're done. They're toddlers; they move on within 5 minutes but if you try to move them before they're done you get 10 minutes of tantrums and then it's even harder to socially distance.

pangolin

Pross said:

My sister is a nursery worker. They've been told not to wear masks as it scares the children and the work involves picking up kids, having them wiping their snotty faces on them and their clothes. Problem is she's a single mum and shares a house with my parents who are in their 70s. I'm not sure where nursery workers fall into the vaccination categories, probably down in level 10 based on age group only.

To be fair, if you are with the kids for 10 hours a day you are going to catch whatever they've got, mask or no mask.