I didn't, but it was pretty widely publicised. Let me see if I can find an article without a paywall!
Just spoken to a young friend training to be a paramedic and he has a home testing kit....has to do it fortnightly and gets the result in half an hour. That's progress.
Not too much new info from the Reuters Next session there - was mainly about how we can fairly distribute vaccines amongst poorer countries, and not just have us/the US/Germans sitting on vaccines that we don't use etc. Neither Tegnell nor Ferguson think we'll have normality until after the summer, but we pretty much knew that.
Great. They have no idea then. At some point, we are going to have decide how much risk we can live with. Because we can't keep our lives in suspension indefinitely.
To be fair I think the govt will allow risk, once the old and vulnerable are vaccinated. The chances are then that COVID will still be rife, but the pressures on the hospitals will be a lot less as in theory the younger and less clinically vulnerable shouldn't have complications. In theory.
That's what I'm thinking. Everything always looks bleak in January, and hospitals are often under pressure at this time of year. Hopefully a combination of vaccines roll out and better weather will mean all manner of things will begin to improve in the spring. At the moment, though, all we're hearing is unremitting negativity and gloom, and threats of fines if we don't comply with ever tighter restrictions; the cynic in me wonders if it's deliberate policy. A friend I spoke to this morning pointed out that people are easier to control when they're afraid.
Deliberate policy to what end, though? Everyone is pissing in the dark a little bit (a lot) with this. We have to hold out, and things will look a lot brighter over summer.
Yeah, I don't really think there's any deliberate policy here, for precisely those reasons. Nobody gains, and nobody is in control anyway. The worry is, that we have willingly - even enthusiastically - surrendered freedoms we normally take for granted. It's not inevitable that we'll get them all back, and if Priti Patel, for example, had her way, I think police would be routinely stopping people in the street as a matter of course. Anything that's not compulsory is prohibited, and vice versa, seemed to be the gist of her presentation yesterday. That said, I believe Boris Johnson's instincts are genuinely libertarian. I chose the word 'instincts' rather than 'principles', because he doesn't have any of the latter.
How accurate is the question? Most tests are designed to be used by medically trained staff. If it's reliable mass testing is the way forward plus trace and isolate along with the vaccine program properly implemented. If it's been available why not in use at every entry point? I can't understand why there's been open borders without checks until recently.
If you think it is bad here, at least we are 'used' to lockdown. I worry for the US. Just had a convo with my daughter (I worry about her as she seems to have been indoctrinated over there) and she said she is off to Disneyworld next week for a few days with the kids, "Before Biden locks us down and takes away our liberty for a few months" I just couldn't answer. Words failed me. 380,000+ deaths, 4000+ new EACH DAY and only getting worse and they cannot see an issue.
The number of people dying from Covid just in Los Angeles every day is more than are murdered there in an average year. Having said that, bad as it is in the USA, the death rate and totals here are proportionately worse, per head of population.
