Local democracy alive and well in Harrow, looks like local councillors have been trained by the EU...
My daughter, who is 32 and pregnant, had a text from her GP inviting her to book an appointment for a vaccination. She thought this must be a mistake, but decided to check it out by clicking on the link and entering her DOB. She was duly offered a selection of appointments, which she declined. I've told her to speak to her GP to find out what's going on.
Certainly stepping up the invites, I got mine yesterday and today the missus got hers, she's two years younger and in the 7th group so didn't expect it for another few weeks. We were lucky enough to book the same days although at different times. No sooner had we booked than I got a call from my doctor offering a jab at the surgery which I declined but nice to see such positive progress...
Covid: Dutch crisis as court orders end to Covid curfew Published 1 hour ago Share Related Topics Coronavirus pandemic please log in to view this image image copyrightEPA image captionHundreds of people were arrested across the Netherlands as rioters defied the curfew last month A court in The Hague has told the Dutch government that an overnight curfew to reduce the spread of coronavirus should be lifted immediately, ruling that it breaches the right to free movement. The court said the 21:00 to 04:30 curfew was imposed by an emergency law when there was no "acute emergency". The decision is a victory for campaign group Viruswaarheid (Virus Truth). Prime Minister Mark Rutte urged people to follow the curfew, even if ministers failed to stop it being lifted. The government asked the court to suspend its decision until an appeal is heard at the end of the week. Unless the court agrees, ministers will be unable to prevent the curfew from being lifted on Tuesday night. Police have said they are prepared for both scenarios. "We haven't for a second considered scrapping the curfew as it is simply necessary," said Mr Rutte, who described the ruling as a setback. The cabinet is urgently working on a new law to enforce the curfew, but that could take time. Curfews have been widely used in Europe to restrict movement. France has had a nightly curfew from 18:00 but has stopped short of imposing a third lockdown. Greece has also imposed curfews, as have Spain and Italy. Why the curfew is contentious The Dutch measure, which came into force on 23 January, was intended to reduce movement, particularly among young people, but triggered days of rioting in a number of towns and cities. The Netherlands had not seen a curfew since Nazi occupation in World War Two. Although the Netherlands initially avoided strict measures, a lockdown was brought in last December and, after the cabinet decided on a curfew in January, MPs backed it days later amid fears that the UK, or Kent, variant would increase infections. The government resigned before last month's curfew decision and now has a caretaker role ahead of elections next month. Infection rates were slightly down on Tuesday, with 2,735 new cases reported in the past 24 hours. But hospital admissions were up and 88 more deaths were reported. Some 629,000 people have received their first Covid-19 vaccine dose since vaccinations began in the Netherlands on 6 January, and of those around one in four have had a second dose. Curfew riots rage for third night in Netherlands How Europe is tackling Covid with lockdowns and curfews Dutch government quits over welfare fraud scandal In their ruling on Tuesday, the Dutch judges said the curfew had been imposed under an emergency law, even though the court said there was no emergency as in the case of a "dyke being breached". media captionDutch police described the rioting as the worst unrest in four decades Fears of increased infection because of the UK variant were not valid as no curfew was imposed last year when pressure on Dutch hospitals was far greater, the judges said. The curfew was therefore a violation of the right to freedom of movement and privacy, and limited the right to freedom of assembly. Commentators spoke of ministers having faced a "Catch-22" situation. When the cabinet decided on the curfew they sought the backing of MPs, but by waiting for parliamentary support, in the judges eyes they had disproved the need for emergency legislation. The case threatened to descend into farce during the afternoon, when Virus Truth spokesman Jeroen Pols accused the lead judge of bias for allowing the government to challenge the court's ruling so quickly. please log in to view this image Unexpected victory for activists please log in to view this image Even the group that brought the case to court, Virus Truth, seemed surprised by its success. I recently interviewed its Covid-sceptic founder, Willem Engel, in his Rotterdam dance studio. He and his followers are adamant governments around the world are using efforts to control the spread of Covid-19 as a guise to gain control of citizens. This ruling has emboldened them. please log in to view this image image copyrightEPA image captionWillem Engel (L) and Jeroen Pols of Virus Truth challenged the Hague court's decision to allow such a quick appeal The curfew has been one of the most controversial and contested elements of the Dutch lockdown but the majority of the population had accepted and abided by it. Some people have started planning "after-curfew" parties, though other rules, such as no more than one guest at home a day and a ban on gatherings of more than two people outdoors, remain in place. While this court victory specifically relates to the Dutch situation, it could be used as a precedent by anti-lockdown groups seeking to overturn Covid-related rules in other countries too.
what could possibly go wrong NEW - Russia scientists 'are trying to extract prehistoric viruses from 50,000-year-old animal carcasses frozen in permafrost' this week. The work is spearheaded by Vector State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology, once a Cold War biological warfare research plant. please log in to view this image
More local democracy being cynically dispatched by Croydon who nobble their Traffic Committee to approve their widely despised LTNs. Reading how they went about it shows just how corrupt these c*nts are. But it's all done because of Covid...
think that's democracy in general imo. Except where it's obvious that the country will smash the government, when has the governement cared about the people affected and gone ahead with plans. Most of the general populace are ambivalent to the ones affected and it will be the usual, you have the opportunity to vote out your council at the next election if they do anything that displeases you.
Businesses are seeking 'no jab, no job' contracts to force employees to get vaccines - What the law says Wednesday 17 February 2021, 3:32pm please log in to view this image A care home provider is requiring all new workers to get the Covid vaccine. Credit: Justin Tallis/PA Some businesses are seeking 'no jab, no job' contracts for workers, as the vaccines minister suggested it is "up to businesses what they do". Barchester Healthcare, which runs more than 200 care homes in the UK, has already announced all new recruits must be vaccinated against Covid-19, unless they have medical reasons not to take the jab. And London-based Pimlico Plumbers said when vaccinations are readily available, all new workers will have to have one. Lawyer Philip Landau, whose firm Landau Law works for employees, said he has seen some employers expecting staff to agree to get the jab, or be disciplined. Who is getting the vaccine next? Who is 'clinically vulnerable'? It comes as vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said some companies might press ahead with their own schemes despite Boris Johnson confirming the government will not introduce domestic vaccine passports. He told the BBC on Tuesday: “It’s up to businesses what they do, but we don’t yet have the evidence of the effect of vaccines on transmission." Barchester Healthcare wrote on its website it is encouraging all existing staff to get the coronavirus jab, and will ensure all new staff "must have the vaccination (if they medically can) before starting work looking after our vulnerable residents and patients". The statement, last updated on Tuesday, continues: "We have been working hard to ensure that all of our staff are aware of the facts around the vaccination, and as we have previously said we have done a lot of communication to understand and alleviate any concerns." How many people have been vaccinated in the UK and when will I get it? The care home provider told ITV News on Wednesday that one option it is considering is that staff who refuse the vaccine on non-medical grounds will not be able to work. But it said it is still "part of an ongoing dialogue" and it is "constantly reviewing this as more information is available". It said it does not intend to discriminate against anyone, and it is aware of such concerns. To make its care homes are safe, Barchester said it is ensuring all staff are aware of the facts around vaccination and has conducted a survey to understand any doubts. Meanwhile, trade union UNISON has written to care minister Helen Whately calling for the government to “send a strong message to employers that putting pressure on staff to take the vaccine as a condition of their work is totally unacceptable”. please log in to view this image Pimlico Plumbers boss Charlie Mullins on ITV's Good Morning Britain on January 19 Credit: ITV Pimlico Plumbers boss Charlie Mullins, told ITV’s Good Morning Britain on January 19 that he would be adapting the contracts of existing staff to say they must have the vaccine and that "99% of the company seems to be happy with it". But an online blog later clarified it would not force anyone to get the jab. Mr Mullins argued on Good Morning Britain: “As an employer, we have a duty and a right to look after our staff, make sure they are safe under health and safety laws. There’s no way we’re going to endanger existing staff or customers with somebody coming in who hasn’t been vaccinated.” He added: “Obviously, there’s going to be exceptions who cannot have it, for whatever their reason may be but at the end of the day, we have to look at the overall thing, and all customers will require one that’s had a vaccine." What you can and cannot do after getting the vaccine Mr Landau said his law firm has seen cases where employers "have sought to make it clear that they expect staff to obtain the jab otherwise they would be disciplined".He said the cases he has seen have been "sales, office and retail type roles" so far. "Those companies open themselves up to a significant risk of a claim if they seek to enforce a 'no jab, no job' policy without a solid health and safety reason in doing so," he warned. What the law says about employers forcing employees to get the Covid vaccine Mr Landau explained: "Generally speaking, employers are under the duty to keep their employees and customers safe. “Moving on from that, there’s nothing stopping employers from encouraging workers from being vaccinated, but they don’t have statutory right to force their workers to get the jab.” He explained that it could be discrimination if employers try to enforce the jab against the wishes of the employee by making it a condition of continuing the employment. Unhappy employees could go down the constructive dismissal route. The same applies even if there are no religious or medical grounds for the employee to refuse the jab, Mr Landau warned. please log in to view this image Marie Nangle, a GP from Tullamore, receives her second dose of the Moderna vaccine Credit: Brian Lawless/PA The position is different for new employees. He said: "Employers can say: 'We want evidence that you have had the vaccine', as long as there’s no medical or religious reasons why they cannot have a jab." He said the situation may also be different for settings such as care homes: “When you’re dealing with vulnerable patients, it could be argued that health and safety obligations are such that a jab is a necessary condition for continuing employment. The employers are in a stronger position.” But Mr Landau warned all of this is untested.
The CEO of Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, David Loughton, has just said on local telly that 725 of his staff have died during the pandemic, I think he said of COVID, but I was so stunned by this figure, which frankly I don’t believe, that I missed that bit. I’ll try and find out, I hope it’s not true.
I think it’s the total number of patients who have died in the hospital. But he definitely said something odd, because both me and my lovely wife said ‘what!!!’ simultaneously. I’ll see if they repeat that interview later.
Bit of a long read, but quite a terrifying account of someones' struggles with Long Covid. My wife tells me this is exactly how she has felt over the last 8 months... This was written back in January, and the author sadly passed away yesterday... ed rooksby Nine months in the long limbo of long covid Nearly 70,000 cases of covid infection were reported yesterday, 8th January. Of course that’s officially confirmed cases and the real number of infections will be much higher. A small but significant proportion of those people will go on to be hospitalised and a small but significant proportion of them will die in the next few days. As we are often reminded, as if to reassure us, most of these victims will be over 60 and/or have various ‘underlying medical conditions’, but there are at least a couple of important ways in which this narrative of reassurance is both troubling and misleading. First, this narrative, intentionally or not (and I think it often is intentional when seized upon by various covid deniers and ‘lockdown sceptics’) effectively relegates people over 60 and those with ‘underlying conditions’ (and the list of these conditions is much more extensive than people normally realise) to more or less sub-human status: those whose deaths and lives are apparently relatively unimportant. Secondly, the fact is that you just don’t know if you are ‘vulnerable’ or not to this virus – no one can be sure that they are ‘safe’ from it. Indeed it’s currently thought that one in 20 people who develop symptoms on infection might suffer symptoms lasting more than eight weeks and, further, a significant number of those people remain unwell for several months (at least) after infection. This isn’t ‘just’ elderly people or those with ‘pre-existing health conditions’, but includes relatively young, relatively fit and active people like me – I’m 45 and before I became very ill with long covid last summer I used to weight-train in a serious and focused way at least 3 to 4 times a week. There are many, many people in more or less the same position as me currently and, given the rates of infection at the moment, many more will find themselves in a similar place over the next few weeks and months. Those who think – selfishly and incorrectly – that the pandemic is of little concern to them personally really ought to think again. I wanted just to record my experiences of the long limbo of long covid over the past 9 months or so. I’m pretty sure I know where and when I was infected and indeed who passed it on to me. In late March, a day or two before the first lockdown came into effect I walked into York city centre with a bravado that turned out to be hubris. I’m not a natural risk-taker, but paradoxically perhaps this instinctive aversion to risk sometimes prompts me to do stupid stuff in conscious rebellion against the cautious prohibitions commanded by my over-active Super Ego. I like to stick two fingers up to its finger wagging every now and again. It was a mistake this time and one I’m still paying for. I was in town to prove to myself that I wasn’t scared and, while I was at it, to pick up some bottles from the very nice Belgian beer specialist on Stonegate and to use a Boots gift card I’d been given months before. This was before masks in shops became mandatory and before people really started to wear them. While queueing in Boots I noticed, too late, that the cashier had a nasty cough. I was too embarrassed to leave the line before it was my turn to be served, and I remember thinking ‘you ****ing moron’, not sure whether I was directing the insult at her or at myself. Both I suppose. She must have known this was a symptom of covid and, for that matter, her store manager must have known it too – she should have been told to self-isolate and supported on full pay. I can’t be 100% sure I got the virus from her, but it seems highly likely. Sometimes I wonder if the elderly woman who was behind me in the queue is still alive. At first my symptoms were extremely mild. I remember waking up with what felt like a mild hangover every day in mid-April that I would shake off by mid-morning. Then I got splitting headaches every now and again and would often feel very tired in the afternoon, and I had a slight tickle in my lungs when I took a deep breath in but I felt no more than very slightly ‘off’ and was still able to function more or less normally – whatever ‘normally’ means in lockdown at least. In fact, while I suspected I might have a mild case of covid infection (and self-isolated), for a long while I put this feeling of being very mildly off-colour down in all probability to psychological side-effects of lockdown since I didn’t have any of what were then seen as the ‘classic’ symptoms – fever, continuous coughing, loss of taste or smell. In fact between April and August I was actually able to step up my workout routine – I bought some resistance bands just before the gyms were shut down and worked out pretty much every day for a couple of hours at least. I’ve probably never been fitter or stronger than in those few weeks. The only strange thing that happened to me in that time was a series of panic attacks – 5 or 6 of them in a 24 hour period. I’ve never had anything like that before. Just before each attack I was watching something on my laptop or looking at my phone when I developed a sudden, deeply uncanny sense of deja-vu followed by a rapid and overwhelming wave of terror. I remember feeling that something extremely bad had happened and/or that there had been some sort of evil presence in the house the night before. Each time it lasted only a few seconds but left me shaken and trembling for a long while afterwards. In retrospect I think this was when the virus got into my nervous system. But apart from this odd 24 hours I felt only mildly under the weather for the first few months. Then in August, when they relaxed the lockdown restrictions, I met up with a friend for a few hours in the city – we just talked and drank coffee in a couple of socially distanced outdoor venues and went for a walk along the river. On the 15 minute walk home to my house I suddenly felt very ill, like I was going to faint and collapse in the street. I only just made it back to my home and crumpled on the sofa where I lay for a few hours with a heavy physical and mental exhaustion that I have never experienced before. Over the next few days my health rapidly and frighteningly deteriorated. The headaches became permanent and the tickle in my lungs became a feeling of uncomfortable tightness. Further symptoms, often bizarre, followed in a gathering cascade. One day when I was out for a careful, short walk in the sun I noticed that that the fingers on my left hand felt swollen and uncomfortable – like the feeling you get when you come into the warm having been outside without gloves on a very cold day – and soon after I developed arthritic pain in my knuckles that migrated to the backs of both of my hands. I woke up with terrible pains in my hands in the early hours of each morning and soon after most of the joints in my body were clicking and popping loudly with any movement. Walking became uncomfortable – my hips, knees and ankles ached and were often very stiff. In addition I had a feeling of what I can only describe as ‘heaviness’ and ‘unresponsiveness’ in my legs – almost as if commands from my brain to move would be held up somewhere in my nervous system in a lag of a few microseconds. About the same time I developed shakes in my arms and terrible aches in my shoulder joints making it impossible to lift my arms above chest height without agonising jolts of pain. Strange knocking and thumping feelings in my chest followed. I developed severe pains in my back and down both sides of my rib-cage. At my worst, in early to mid September, I had a couple of nights where I literally thought I was going to die. Both times I went to bed with a strange feeling like there was a stream flowing up through my chest into my left shoulder and down the length of my arm and woke up in the early hours with that arm completely dead – numb and useless, I couldn’t feel it at all and I couldn’t move any of my fingers on that hand. I thought I was having a stroke and considered dialling 999 with my useable hand. I didn’t do it, but I did draft goodbye messages to my family on WhatsApp on my phone, to have them ready to send if I felt myself going. Sounds completely absurd now but it felt very real at the time. About the same time the vision in my left eye blurred and I found it difficult to read anything on a screen and I also developed crippling myalgia in my shoulders and neck. I was taking paracetamol and rubbing ibroprofen gel into my shoulders and back around the clock just to manage the constant pain. I also had pretty bad ‘brain fog’. Basically it felt like my brain was encased in cotton wool and that I was somehow removed from reality, like I was watching everything – including my own activity – from behind thick glass. I would have spells of intense de-realisation and head spinning vertigo when I turned my head quickly or when I looked from brightness to shadow (peering out of the window into the sunlight and then back into the house for example would leave me extremely disorientated). The psychological dimension to all of this, as you might imagine, was pretty bad. I was deeply depressed and I was convinced that I had a degenerative chronic illness and that my life was pretty much over. Thankfully at about this time I read on a long covid support group page on Facebook that over the counter anti-histamines were alleviating a lot of sufferers’ symptoms. I bought some and in a couple of days the worst of the myalgia and the brain fog lifted, plus the arthritis and headaches noticeably subsided. Somehow, through all of this I had managed to prepare teaching for a new 3rd year course that I was taking over in the Autumn term – but I don’t think I would have been able to teach it had I not started on the anti-histamines in late September. Thankfully my department were really good about supporting me by first prompting me to have an occupational health assessment, and then moving all my teaching online – I simply would not have had the strength or energy to walk around on campus between seminar rooms for any in-person teaching. I thought I was getting better in October, but like many long covid sufferers I’m hit by ‘relapses’ that seem to follow any period of apparent recovery in an interminable cycle. None of these relapses have been as bad as when it was at its worst in September, but each one is a demoralising and crushing blow mentally. It’s like glimpsing light at the end of the tunnel and then realising each time it’s yet another truck hurtling toward you to knock you flat for a week or two. At the moment, 9 months or so from first contracting the infection, I have pretty bad fatigue and concentration problems (I can’t read more than 5 pages for teaching purposes without my mind shutting down), tightness and pains in my ribs and chest – I think it’s my lungs – I have a little bit of arthritic stiffness in my joints and any form of even mild physical exercise leaves me with ‘heavy legs’, cramping pains in my calves and clicking joints in my ankles, knees and hips. I know from a couple of previous attempts at (very cautious) resistance bands workouts that even light strength training leaves me with post-exertional malaise and precipitates a relapse for at least a fortnight afterwards. In fact this inability to exercise is what’s getting me down the most. I really enjoy weight training and indeed it became a very important part of my routine over the past 10 years or so. It provides me with crucial psychological benefits (anxiety-reduction, self-confidence) as much as physical ones and it really is a source of anguish to me that I haven’t been able to do it for 5 months or so now with no end in sight. I’m sure I’ve degenerated physically over the past few months and lost a lot of muscle bulk which is just heartbreaking. I know it’s not the biggest tragedy in the world but it’s really **** for me. These last 9 months have been like living in limbo for pretty much all of us – lives on hold while we wait for the pandemic to pass. While I don’t claim to have had it worse than many others – I’ve not lost a loved one to the virus for example, and I can’t imagine what it must be like to be old and isolated or to have a child with a chronic health condition and to be shielding them in fear for their life – the nowhere I’ve inhabited along with thousands of other long covid sufferers for months has been particularly alienating. This weird liminal space between not-quite-chronic sickness and not-quite-health, not really one or the other but both, is a no-place in which you can’t really make plans for the future and in which it’s even difficult to dare to imagine a future different to the no-place present – a future when I’m well and can do the things that I used to take for granted again. It would be nice to be able to go for a walk for example or to do the vacuuming without feeling half-dead afterwards. I don’t know how long this is going to last and when I’m going to get better or if I ever really will. I heard recently that post-viral symptoms among those who contracted SARS-COV-1 (very similar apparently to the long haul symptoms stemming from Covid-19) lasted between 12-18 months and that on this basis outer limit recovery times for those with long covid are likely to be in this range – so that’s something. Certainly a significant number of long haulers who fell ill in March/April seem to have recovered – but not everyone has the same range or severity of symptoms. I’m waiting for a referral to a lung specialist and to a long covid clinic and I hope some progress will emerge from that. So it’s been a pretty **** 9 months. If I, as a fairly fit, not that old person with no known ‘underlying conditions’ can get it, so can you and so can the people you care about. Don’t be complacent and don’t be an idiot.
You can only have the utmost sympathy for anyone with the long term symptoms and so random as well, RIP... I had my jab yesterday and found as the day wore on I was getting aches and pains all over my body and had a very uncomfortable night. I know from those who have had the virus that they are totally wiped out for many days so would hate to think how bad the real thing can be. It's obviously a very complex and random thing. Hopefully these jabs are worth the short term discomfort...
Looked like he was a decent bloke, university professor, lot of people talking positively about him on Twitter The mrs did a bit of digging and thinks he may have had clots in his lungs, and he's thrown one and had a heart attack. He mentioned in his story he was waiting to see lung specialists - thankfully my wife had her lungs scanned and they were ok. She finds his whole story scary as each part of it mirrors her own experiences, including thinking she was going to die at one stage. Thankfully she's a lot better now, although still not fully recovered 10 months after having Covid. With the amount of cases we were seeing back in January, I fear for the mid to long term health of a lot of these people if they have anything like the symptoms she's had.
Clots and embolisms are all a by-product of Covid. This guy probably did not have them before Covid. For those of you who criticise the use of the semantics of the words "died of Covid" versus "died with Covid......this guy died of a pulmonary embolism, because he did not have a positive Covid within the (arbitary) 28 days The deaths caused by infection with the SARS2-Covid 19 virus will probably end up at double the "official" level. We will have ramifications in the death rates for probably a decade or more...and yes you are right that the man that dies of a pulmonary embolism or because he didn't get his cancer treatment on time, or from a stroke or of lung disease or even from suicide through depression may have died within the next few months or years....but to each family, those are precious times that take precious people away to early.
is this true and are these yellow stickers star shaped please log in to view this image Walkabout @Walkabout24 Has #Morrisons crossed a red line with its yellow stickers that mask-exempt people are required to wear?
No Covid-19 outbreaks have been linked to crowded beaches, MPs told Health coronavirus Wednesday 17 February 2021, 2:10pm please log in to view this image No Covid-19 outbreak linked to a crowded beach, MPs have heard. Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, told the Science and Technology Committee: “Over the summer we were treated to all this on the television news and pictures of crowded beaches, and there was an outcry about this. “There were no outbreaks linked to crowded beaches, there’s never been a Covid-19 outbreak linked to a beach ever anywhere in the world to the best of my knowledge.” Alongside other government advisers, Professor Woolhouse joined the Science and Technology committee to explore methods of easing lockdown measures in England. please log in to view this image A major incident was declared in Bournemouth in June after 500,000 attended the beach. Credit: PA He referred to widespread concern about a lack of social distancing on beaches during the summer last year. Local authorities warned of a rise in infections, including Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council. They declared a major incident after roughly 500,000 people flocked to Bournemouth's seafronts in June. On the same day, Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that the government had the power to close public areas, such as beaches, if people flouted Covid-19 restrictions. 'One way from now on': Boris Johnson pledges 'irreversible' steps out of Covid lockdown as he looks to ease restrictions Would you be happy to be deliberately exposed to Covid-19? Professor Woolhouse said that although he didn't know of any outbreaks linked to beaches, mass gatherings – like horse racing events – were an exception. He said they can accelerate the spread of Covid-19 as they do not involve social distancing and involve “pinch points” like travel and refreshment facilities. “I think we do have to understand where the risks are so that we can do as much as possible safely,” he added.
