While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
Of course. This is PB.
Incidentally, musing over this chart, and projecting to a population of 10 times that of Israel, with a similar vaccination rate assumed. We should anticipate 150-200 covid deaths per day after everyone is offered vaccination.
I don't see how you can make that inference. We're already there through the lockdown we had four months below that level last year without any vaccines at all. We will be opening up much more cautiously than Israel and with higher levels of herd immunity.
Just fairly straightforward extrapolation. Vaccines will have a failure rate, particularly with those not getting a booster, and with the unvaccinated. Israeli numbers may peter out further, but I suspect that refusniks are clustered in certain communities, so will become endemic for a period of months or longer.
I think our rate of vaccine acceptance is much higher than that of Israel. We got down into single figures in the summer and we can do it again.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
We're still going to have millions of first doses done in April as well anyway, just maybe not as many as the 8-10m we'd like, probably more like 4-5m.
Yeah right, pull the other one.
We have two new vaccines coming in April. We have to use at least 50% of that supply as it comes in. That alone will get us into the "many millions".
Then why have all the appointments for April been blocked out, why have the vaccination centres been told they'll have less work to do, and why has the entire emphasis been placed on the second jabs?
Enough supply to get the firsts restarted may be forthcoming next month, but let's just say I'll believe it when I see it and not before.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Apart from the totally anti-social minority who enjoy being hermits, absolutely everyone has had enough of this.
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
If they haven't then it'll last precisely as long as it takes them to realise "Hang on, the Government keeps boring on about these wonderful vaccines - but what about me?"
And if they introduce a vaccine apartheid pass system so the olds can go out whilst the youngsters are imprisoned, they'll certainly bloody notice then.
The important thing to remember, certainly as far as international travel is concerned, is that it will be the travel companies themselves and their insurers who will require vaccine confirmation documents and, most likely, the countries themselves
I wasn't talking about international travel. I mean, granted, creating a situation where all the over 50s have been done twice and can have playtime whilst all the under 50s are stuck at home til God knows when is bad enough. But no, I was talking about the Government slapping access bans on pubs, restaurants and everything else on the unvaccinated.
I wouldn't put it past them. They only care about the old.
I often sympathise with your laments, but this accusation is simply stupid. Boris is an instinctive libertarian, that's why the govt fucked up the early stage of the plague, as he now admits. His instincts are to allow things, have fun, be young, let's be optimistic.
The govt doesn't want to lockdown the economy more than a day than is necessary. They would love to throw the world open to kids and teens and everyone. With every hour that passes, with everything shut, and everyone at home, our debt mountain grows.
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
Of course. This is PB.
Incidentally, musing over this chart, and projecting to a population of 10 times that of Israel, with a similar vaccination rate assumed. We should anticipate 150-200 covid deaths per day after everyone is offered vaccination.
I don't see how you can make that inference. We're already there through the lockdown we had four months below that level last year without any vaccines at all. We will be opening up much more cautiously than Israel and with higher levels of herd immunity.
Just fairly straightforward extrapolation. Vaccines will have a failure rate, particularly with those not getting a booster, and with the unvaccinated. Israeli numbers may peter out further, but I suspect that refusniks are clustered in certain communities, so will become endemic for a period of months or longer.
But if the incidence rate is lower while the rest are vaccinated, then surely deaths will be lower?
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Apart from the totally anti-social minority who enjoy being hermits, absolutely everyone has had enough of this.
Even my other half is sick of it and she's way more introverted than me.
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
Of course. This is PB.
Incidentally, musing over this chart, and projecting to a population of 10 times that of Israel, with a similar vaccination rate assumed. We should anticipate 150-200 covid deaths per day after everyone is offered vaccination.
I don't see how you can make that inference. We're already there through the lockdown we had four months below that level last year without any vaccines at all. We will be opening up much more cautiously than Israel and with higher levels of herd immunity.
Just fairly straightforward extrapolation. Vaccines will have a failure rate, particularly with those not getting a booster, and with the unvaccinated. Israeli numbers may peter out further, but I suspect that refusniks are clustered in certain communities, so will become endemic for a period of months or longer.
But if the incidence rate is lower while the rest are vaccinated, then surely deaths will be lower?
Not very visible in the Israeli figures yet.
I'm talking about the figures in the UK. If the UK is in the same position as Isreal with respect to vaccines, but a much lower incidence rate, then surely the death rate is going to be lower? It can only spread so much, and more and more people will be vaccinated.
I've just rewound iplayer to check this - JVT did indeed say "we are only talking about a few more months". Did he misspeak? - I bloody hope so.
Why do you think Hancock and Van Tam are so blase, so casual and relaxed about your precious timetable? Why is it manifestly no big deal to them?
Could it be perhaps, that people such as yourself and the vast majority on here have swallowed so much of what the government had to tell you hook line and sinker, poured scorn on those who asked questioned government policy such as myself, and actively disparaged the few who oppose government policy such as Toby Young and Julia HB?
because of almost everybody on here, and the voters, Hancock can do what he wants. He can take his own sweet time.
And that is manifestly what he intends to do.
Remind me again why he's doing this? Is it titillation or something?
No its power. exactly the same reason the government wants another six months of massive sweeping arbitrary powers. Why does it what those if we're coming out of lockdown in June?
Yes, the way the power-mad government is keeping the schools closed is just terrible. Totalitarian, really.
Oh come on ... schools may be back open but they are nowhere near back to normal ... social distancing, masks, teacher assessment instead of exams, no activities outside the class room and on and on. The damage to education caused by this power-mad government advised by a single-minded cabal of unaccountable scientists will last for years and may not be fully repaired for a generation or more.
How can you possibly expect things to be back to normal when almost everyone in the school is unvaccinated? If these measures weren't in place, children could become superspreaders again and delay the whole unlocking. Which alternative do you prefer?
Superspreaders to who? older people who, as Matt Hancock has just said, are way safer than they were due to being vaccinated with the addition protections of masks, social distancing and other lockdown goodies.
This is in the realms of completely unjustifiable.
Ever heard of these things called 'parents'? Most parents of school-age children are still unvaccinated, and so they'd be the ones infected if we let schools operate as normal. It's really not hard to understand.
Healthy people under 60 (ie almost all parents) who have contracted and then died of or been hospitalised by covid are an extremely tiny number. Even those under 60 with underlying health problems who died or were hospitalised is a pretty small number.
How much longer does central office think people are going to swallow this bullsh8t?
You'd be the expert in swallowing bullshit, since you've already refused the vaccine you were offered just because you don't want the government to 'put you on a list'. Most other people would take it in a heartbeat, given the chance.
Your credibility in moaning about why we can't go back to normal immediately is therefore, er, not strong.
Has he refused a vaccine? Not sure that’s true. He is not an antivaxxer, I’m pretty certain he’s said that several times.
I'm afraid he's said explicitly that he'll only consider taking the vaccine himself when it's available privately, and will never accept it from the NHS because he doesn't want to be on the list of the kind of people who take vaccines. I wish I were joking. He also said recently that he was 59, so assuming he was telling the truth about that, he's almost certainly been offered an NHS jab by now.
“the kind of people who take vaccines”.
Really? Is this true Contrarian?
???
I have taken plenty of vaccines, including most recently a flu vaccine (which I paid for privately) in the autumn of 2019.
I am sure the vaccines are safe and very effective. And that is one reason I am wondering why we are not out of lockdown when 25 million people have been given them.
I work from home and my contact with people outside my bubble is almost zero. Indoors, completely zero.
Its just not a priority. When we open up, it will be and I will have a vaccine.
But to be clear you have been offered a vaccine, and refused it? Why?
I got sent a letter recently and I just have not bothered to make an appointment. Its not like I told some poor NHS person to go f8ck themselves.
You don’t want to be locked down and don’t want to be vaccinated (at least not on anyone’s terms but your own) either. So what, exactly, are you prepared to do to bring this crisis to an end?
I don't see the crisis in the terms you do and never have. But in your terms, I have obeyed every lockdown rule going. And I will until the government lifts the restrictions. At which point I will get a vaccine.
In the end it comes down to this.
I have never disagreed with a single UK government policy more fundamentally in my life than the lockdown policy. I have argued against it with everything I have for a year.
I have never, ever despised a British government more than the Johnson government. Given the choice, and given the fact is ain;t harming anybody, why on earth would I do what that government wants?
It's a much slower rate than we'd like but we also have Novavax in April too and there's a huge first shipment plus 2-3m per week ramping up to 5m per week in May. Again if we stick to the manufacturer recommendation and hold back 50% of doses then we could easily do 1-1.5m of these rising to 2.5m per week of first doses, plus whatever we have of Moderna. I personally think we're still on track for 3m first doses done per week of these two vaccines from May onwards plus the second dose programme for those two in groups 10 and 11 in addition to second Pfizer and AZ for groups 1-9.
Max, has the delivery schedule for Novavax changed? The UK government press release mentions that deliveries are due to begin in the second half of the year. It would be fantastic we’re now expecting the first tranche in April.
The CEO of Novavax has said the first deliveries of their vaccine will be in April from the Czechia site to the UK and that UK manufacturing will be ramping up in April and reach capacity during May. Kate Bingham also confirmed the latter and said that Teeside site had produced it's first batches (that was in early February).
I think the comprehensive early success of the preliminary readout has allowed them to accelerate production.
Our vaccine strategy is tip-top; we've procured a diverse and varied supply of all sorts of vaccines that *anticipated* issues like this. Furthermore, the one thing a top-down centralised bureaucratic NHS is good for is a single national war-time goal like this, and they'll find a way of shuffling the deck so the show goes on.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Apart from the totally anti-social minority who enjoy being hermits, absolutely everyone has had enough of this.
Even my other half is sick of it and she's way more introverted than me.
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
If they haven't then it'll last precisely as long as it takes them to realise "Hang on, the Government keeps boring on about these wonderful vaccines - but what about me?"
And if they introduce a vaccine apartheid pass system so the olds can go out whilst the youngsters are imprisoned, they'll certainly bloody notice then.
The important thing to remember, certainly as far as international travel is concerned, is that it will be the travel companies themselves and their insurers who will require vaccine confirmation documents and, most likely, the countries themselves
I wasn't talking about international travel. I mean, granted, creating a situation where all the over 50s have been done twice and can have playtime whilst all the under 50s are stuck at home til God knows when is bad enough. But no, I was talking about the Government slapping access bans on pubs, restaurants and everything else on the unvaccinated.
I wouldn't put it past them. They only care about the old.
I just do not see that happening and you are just a wee bit over the top saying they only care about the old
Mind you there are millions of children and grandchildren who really do care for their aged parents and grandparents who do fall into the highest risk and death toll so far
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
We're still going to have millions of first doses done in April as well anyway, just maybe not as many as the 8-10m we'd like, probably more like 4-5m.
Yeah right, pull the other one.
We have two new vaccines coming in April. We have to use at least 50% of that supply as it comes in. That alone will get us into the "many millions".
Then why have all the appointments for April been blocked out, why have the vaccination centres been told they'll have less work to do, and why has the entire emphasis been placed on the second jabs?
Enough supply to get the firsts restarted may be forthcoming next month, but let's just say I'll believe it when I see it and not before.
Because we don't have the Moderna vaccines in hand and Novavax hasn't been authorised yet. You can't book appointments for vaccines you don't have yet.
I've just rewound iplayer to check this - JVT did indeed say "we are only talking about a few more months". Did he misspeak? - I bloody hope so.
Why do you think Hancock and Van Tam are so blase, so casual and relaxed about your precious timetable? Why is it manifestly no big deal to them?
Could it be perhaps, that people such as yourself and the vast majority on here have swallowed so much of what the government had to tell you hook line and sinker, poured scorn on those who asked questioned government policy such as myself, and actively disparaged the few who oppose government policy such as Toby Young and Julia HB?
because of almost everybody on here, and the voters, Hancock can do what he wants. He can take his own sweet time.
And that is manifestly what he intends to do.
Remind me again why he's doing this? Is it titillation or something?
No its power. exactly the same reason the government wants another six months of massive sweeping arbitrary powers. Why does it what those if we're coming out of lockdown in June?
Yes, the way the power-mad government is keeping the schools closed is just terrible. Totalitarian, really.
Oh come on ... schools may be back open but they are nowhere near back to normal ... social distancing, masks, teacher assessment instead of exams, no activities outside the class room and on and on. The damage to education caused by this power-mad government advised by a single-minded cabal of unaccountable scientists will last for years and may not be fully repaired for a generation or more.
How can you possibly expect things to be back to normal when almost everyone in the school is unvaccinated? If these measures weren't in place, children could become superspreaders again and delay the whole unlocking. Which alternative do you prefer?
Superspreaders to who? older people who, as Matt Hancock has just said, are way safer than they were due to being vaccinated with the addition protections of masks, social distancing and other lockdown goodies.
This is in the realms of completely unjustifiable.
Ever heard of these things called 'parents'? Most parents of school-age children are still unvaccinated, and so they'd be the ones infected if we let schools operate as normal. It's really not hard to understand.
Healthy people under 60 (ie almost all parents) who have contracted and then died of or been hospitalised by covid are an extremely tiny number. Even those under 60 with underlying health problems who died or were hospitalised is a pretty small number.
How much longer does central office think people are going to swallow this bullsh8t?
You'd be the expert in swallowing bullshit, since you've already refused the vaccine you were offered just because you don't want the government to 'put you on a list'. Most other people would take it in a heartbeat, given the chance.
Your credibility in moaning about why we can't go back to normal immediately is therefore, er, not strong.
Has he refused a vaccine? Not sure that’s true. He is not an antivaxxer, I’m pretty certain he’s said that several times.
I'm afraid he's said explicitly that he'll only consider taking the vaccine himself when it's available privately, and will never accept it from the NHS because he doesn't want to be on the list of the kind of people who take vaccines. I wish I were joking. He also said recently that he was 59, so assuming he was telling the truth about that, he's almost certainly been offered an NHS jab by now.
“the kind of people who take vaccines”.
Really? Is this true Contrarian?
???
I have taken plenty of vaccines, including most recently a flu vaccine (which I paid for privately) in the autumn of 2019.
I am sure the vaccines are safe and very effective. And that is one reason I am wondering why we are not out of lockdown when 25 million people have been given them.
I work from home and my contact with people outside my bubble is almost zero. Indoors, completely zero.
Its just not a priority. When we open up, it will be and I will have a vaccine.
But to be clear you have been offered a vaccine, and refused it? Why?
I got sent a letter recently and I just have not bothered to make an appointment. Its not like I told some poor NHS person to go f8ck themselves.
You don’t want to be locked down and don’t want to be vaccinated (at least not on anyone’s terms but your own) either. So what, exactly, are you prepared to do to bring this crisis to an end?
I don't see the crisis in the terms you do and never have. But in your terms, I have obeyed every lockdown rule going. And I will until the government lifts the restrictions. At which point I will get a vaccine.
In the end it comes down to this.
I have never disagreed with a single UK government policy more fundamentally in my life than the lockdown policy. I have argued against it with everything I have for a year.
I have never, ever despised a British government more than the Johnson government. Given the choice, and given the fact is ain;t harming anybody, why on earth would I do what that government wants?
If everyone took that attitude this thing would be going on for a whole lot longer. It's quite frankly selfish.
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
Of course. This is PB.
Incidentally, musing over this chart, and projecting to a population of 10 times that of Israel, with a similar vaccination rate assumed. We should anticipate 150-200 covid deaths per day after everyone is offered vaccination.
I don't see how you can make that inference. We're already there through the lockdown we had four months below that level last year without any vaccines at all. We will be opening up much more cautiously than Israel and with higher levels of herd immunity.
Just fairly straightforward extrapolation. Vaccines will have a failure rate, particularly with those not getting a booster, and with the unvaccinated. Israeli numbers may peter out further, but I suspect that refusniks are clustered in certain communities, so will become endemic for a period of months or longer.
But if the incidence rate is lower while the rest are vaccinated, then surely deaths will be lower?
Not very visible in the Israeli figures yet.
I'm talking about the figures in the UK. If the UK is in the same position as Isreal with respect to vaccines, but a much lower incidence rate, then surely the death rate is going to be lower? It can only spread so much, and more and more people will be vaccinated.
Though we know that the incidence rises with unlocking, indeed is expected to do so with schools back.
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
Of course. This is PB.
Incidentally, musing over this chart, and projecting to a population of 10 times that of Israel, with a similar vaccination rate assumed. We should anticipate 150-200 covid deaths per day after everyone is offered vaccination.
I don't see how you can make that inference. We're already there through the lockdown we had four months below that level last year without any vaccines at all. We will be opening up much more cautiously than Israel and with higher levels of herd immunity.
Just fairly straightforward extrapolation. Vaccines will have a failure rate, particularly with those not getting a booster, and with the unvaccinated. Israeli numbers may peter out further, but I suspect that refusniks are clustered in certain communities, so will become endemic for a period of months or longer.
But if the incidence rate is lower while the rest are vaccinated, then surely deaths will be lower?
Not very visible in the Israeli figures yet.
I'm talking about the figures in the UK. If the UK is in the same position as Isreal with respect to vaccines, but a much lower incidence rate, then surely the death rate is going to be lower? It can only spread so much, and more and more people will be vaccinated.
Though we know that the incidence rises with unlocking, indeed is expected to do so with schools back.
But it's already at a lower base. Israel are reporting the equivalent of 10k cases a day.
It's a much slower rate than we'd like but we also have Novavax in April too and there's a huge first shipment plus 2-3m per week ramping up to 5m per week in May. Again if we stick to the manufacturer recommendation and hold back 50% of doses then we could easily do 1-1.5m of these rising to 2.5m per week of first doses, plus whatever we have of Moderna. I personally think we're still on track for 3m first doses done per week of these two vaccines from May onwards plus the second dose programme for those two in groups 10 and 11 in addition to second Pfizer and AZ for groups 1-9.
Max, has the delivery schedule for Novavax changed? The UK government press release mentions that deliveries are due to begin in the second half of the year. It would be fantastic we’re now expecting the first tranche in April.
I have been working throughout, so haven't missed too much. I miss the theatre and football, but am not that bothered by the rest. Like many others I have rediscovered domestic joys. Mrs Foxy misses shopping, but I have enough stuff to last me out.
I do miss wearing proper clothes. I have a half dozen suits not worn in a year, and I do like to dress well. Scrubs are so saggy and baggy.
Have to say I'm much the same as you, @Foxy. Work keeps me busy and plenty of contact with colleagues and clients. After years of commuting, I've enjoyed working at home and not trudging to the tube station in the dark or coming home in the dark.
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
Unless of course we had actually been getting AZ from the Halix site in the Netherlands?
Just a few sentences. Problem at the factory. Sorry about that. Back to normal soon.
*waits*
Well quite. But you forget how utterly shite this government is at simple comms.
As Mrs Eek pointed out at tea, announcing that the delay is due to a damaged batch or similar issue may cause people to try to avoid getting an AZ vaccine.
How do they quality check it.
Produced on mass. Pressure to get it in service. How is it quality checked?
This has been explained several times on here, and is trivially googleable.
The vaccine is delivered in frozen form to the fill and finish plant, where vaccine is packed into vials, some containing eight doses and others 10, each batch must be quality-approved by the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC). The DHSC said vaccine testing can usually take up to 20 days, but is seeking to bring that down to five days. testing is normally carried out in two phases, first by the manufacturer, which sends the data to inspectors at the NIBSC. The NIBSC carries out its own tests, including when the vaccine is being put into vials. these tests are happening in parallel to release the vaccine as quickly as possible. Oxford Biomedica as a quality certified plant, it carries out the required tests and sends the data to the NIBSC.
For the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca, the independent testing performed by the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control usually takes around four days to complete. These tests are to check the physical appearance of the vaccine in the vial, to check it’s the correct material, and importantly to measure its potency (strength). Potency testing could involve either in vitro or in vivo tests, or both, (In vivo refers to when research or work is done with or within an entire, living organism. Examples can include studies in animal models or human clinical trials. In vitro is used to describe work that's performed outside of a living organism.) which have been specifically designed for each product to indicate its potency. It’s expressed in units and is the quantitative measure of biological activity based on the attribute of the product which is linked to the relevant biological properties. Normally, for a vaccine or other biological product, the potency of the product reflects the quantity of active ingredient and therefore the assay should predict clinical benefit. The complexity of biologics means potency assays should provide an indication of not only quantity, but also the total activity of an active ingredient. Larger amounts of potency correlate with greater activity (preferably linear). Potency assays must possess characteristics that are amenable to validation, indicate stability and are precise enough to assure that the dose is safe and effective throughout its shelf life.
The laboratory will also carry out a thorough review of the manufacturer batch documentation that describes the production process and quality control testing performed by the company. This work is just one part of a broader set of quality and safety checks by the manufacturer which – because this is a complex biological product – cannot be sped up further. This is an ongoing process to ensure continually have the best expert staff and resources to enable us to complete our testing as quickly as possible, without compromising on quality. 🙂
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
There was an interesting piece on "lockdown secrets" at the end of Channel 4 news. It seems quite a few people rather like it and don't want it to end.
Many pensioners have seen little change in their lifestyles, but they'd like to see their grandkids.
We also have to bear in mind many people work to live and don't enjoy their jobs very much, and like their bosses even less. They might enjoy the freedom of working from home, particularly if they're on furlough. But they'd also like to see their family and friends.
I think the ideal situation for a minority (not the young or the big bosses) would be one where they can socially do as they please, within reason, but are told to work from home by edict.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Thanks. Reassuring to know I am not alone. A friend has just this moment texted me to say Yes, he too feels exactly this
So it must be a phenomenon. Perhaps it is a form of institutionalisation. We are like lifers in jail
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
If they haven't then it'll last precisely as long as it takes them to realise "Hang on, the Government keeps boring on about these wonderful vaccines - but what about me?"
And if they introduce a vaccine apartheid pass system so the olds can go out whilst the youngsters are imprisoned, they'll certainly bloody notice then.
The important thing to remember, certainly as far as international travel is concerned, is that it will be the travel companies themselves and their insurers who will require vaccine confirmation documents and, most likely, the countries themselves
I wasn't talking about international travel. I mean, granted, creating a situation where all the over 50s have been done twice and can have playtime whilst all the under 50s are stuck at home til God knows when is bad enough. But no, I was talking about the Government slapping access bans on pubs, restaurants and everything else on the unvaccinated.
I wouldn't put it past them. They only care about the old.
I often sympathise with your laments, but this accusation is simply stupid. Boris is an instinctive libertarian, that's why the govt fucked up the early stage of the plague, as he now admits. His instincts are to allow things, have fun, be young, let's be optimistic.
The govt doesn't want to lockdown the economy more than a day than is necessary. They would love to throw the world open to kids and teens and everyone. With every hour that passes, with everything shut, and everyone at home, our debt mountain grows.
Silly accusation. Tsk.
Yeah, you're probably right. My inner cynic taking over. Though in my defence the Tories are the Party of the Aged, so it's not entirely irrational to believe that they would make more policy choices that privilege them.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
To be honest Leon even with your sweeping mood changes which could encompass the Mongolian Steppes in their magnitude, you are probably still more stable and objective than most journalists and MPs.
I have been working throughout, so haven't missed too much. I miss the theatre and football, but am not that bothered by the rest. Like many others I have rediscovered domestic joys. Mrs Foxy misses shopping, but I have enough stuff to last me out.
I do miss wearing proper clothes. I have a half dozen suits not worn in a year, and I do like to dress well. Scrubs are so saggy and baggy.
Have to say I'm much the same as you, @Foxy. Work keeps me busy and plenty of contact with colleagues and clients. After years of commuting, I've enjoyed working at home and not trudging to the tube station in the dark or coming home in the dark.
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
Yes, and while there is no denying that some people's mental health is adversely affected, there is another group rather relieved at less social interaction in the flesh. Children no longer physically bullied etc.
Hell is other people. Online it is easier to enjoy solitude.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Credit for your self-awareness there.
And tbf your (occasionally hyperreactive) posts liven up this site no end 👍
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
If the exact nature of the problems is already known then why were we not told what they were and how long they were likely to delay the deliveries, rather than being served a diet of guff about the bloody over 50s second jabs? It shouldn't be that damned hard.
Does occur to me that maybe we are a bunch of obsessives obsessing over stuff that the vast majority of people will not even notice?
If they haven't then it'll last precisely as long as it takes them to realise "Hang on, the Government keeps boring on about these wonderful vaccines - but what about me?"
And if they introduce a vaccine apartheid pass system so the olds can go out whilst the youngsters are imprisoned, they'll certainly bloody notice then.
The important thing to remember, certainly as far as international travel is concerned, is that it will be the travel companies themselves and their insurers who will require vaccine confirmation documents and, most likely, the countries themselves
I wasn't talking about international travel. I mean, granted, creating a situation where all the over 50s have been done twice and can have playtime whilst all the under 50s are stuck at home til God knows when is bad enough. But no, I was talking about the Government slapping access bans on pubs, restaurants and everything else on the unvaccinated.
I wouldn't put it past them. They only care about the old.
I often sympathise with your laments, but this accusation is simply stupid. Boris is an instinctive libertarian, that's why the govt fucked up the early stage of the plague, as he now admits. His instincts are to allow things, have fun, be young, let's be optimistic.
The govt doesn't want to lockdown the economy more than a day than is necessary. They would love to throw the world open to kids and teens and everyone. With every hour that passes, with everything shut, and everyone at home, our debt mountain grows.
Silly accusation. Tsk.
He seems to be keeping that instinct remarkably well hidden. And I am not taking about Covid regulations either.
Which is why his Government is trying to pass the most authoritarian legislation of our lifetime.
Literally thought crimes...
Boris's admirers need to come to terms with the fact that Boris is instinctively only about what benefits Boris. The libertarian stuff served a purpose when he had to cosy up to Speccie readers during the New Labour 'nanny state' era. All that's been ditched. He now has the Red Wall voters to think about who, he's calculated, get their satisfaction from raw-meat authoritarianism.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
With respect the tragedy is the 126,000 lost lives
While I hate to piss on everyone’s conspiracy parade, is anything that was in today’s news all that much different from what was reported in this FT tweet from ...(checks)...three days ago?
So maybe it is just really shoddy PR by the government, who probably did not expect that letter to leak? If they didn't expect it, they were fools, of course it would leak
And the confusion over imports/AZ is just Laura K being fed false info. Probably
Can a letter be said to have leaked when it is on a publicly open website?
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
The weather is part of it. Very different to last March.
Endless cold and wind. Just an extension of February, really. Not freezing, but nasty enough to usher you indoors. And I have walked in enough parks to last a lifetime.
So the days roll by, with an aching slowness. Changeless, and pointless. A quiet circle of Dantean Hell, designed by puritans.
Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, the country’s paper of record, went further, labelling the EU “the work of the devil.” He told Sky News Australia: “The European Union is essentially the work of the devil.” He continued: “Its operating procedure is this – it ties itself up in ludicrous regulatory knots and imposes grotesque cost disadvantages on it itself. It then tries to export those cost disadvantages through the treaty system and multilateralise them.”
I've just rewound iplayer to check this - JVT did indeed say "we are only talking about a few more months". Did he misspeak? - I bloody hope so.
Why do you think Hancock and Van Tam are so blase, so casual and relaxed about your precious timetable? Why is it manifestly no big deal to them?
Could it be perhaps, that people such as yourself and the vast majority on here have swallowed so much of what the government had to tell you hook line and sinker, poured scorn on those who asked questioned government policy such as myself, and actively disparaged the few who oppose government policy such as Toby Young and Julia HB?
because of almost everybody on here, and the voters, Hancock can do what he wants. He can take his own sweet time.
And that is manifestly what he intends to do.
Remind me again why he's doing this? Is it titillation or something?
No its power. exactly the same reason the government wants another six months of massive sweeping arbitrary powers. Why does it what those if we're coming out of lockdown in June?
Yes, the way the power-mad government is keeping the schools closed is just terrible. Totalitarian, really.
Oh come on ... schools may be back open but they are nowhere near back to normal ... social distancing, masks, teacher assessment instead of exams, no activities outside the class room and on and on. The damage to education caused by this power-mad government advised by a single-minded cabal of unaccountable scientists will last for years and may not be fully repaired for a generation or more.
How can you possibly expect things to be back to normal when almost everyone in the school is unvaccinated? If these measures weren't in place, children could become superspreaders again and delay the whole unlocking. Which alternative do you prefer?
Superspreaders to who? older people who, as Matt Hancock has just said, are way safer than they were due to being vaccinated with the addition protections of masks, social distancing and other lockdown goodies.
This is in the realms of completely unjustifiable.
Ever heard of these things called 'parents'? Most parents of school-age children are still unvaccinated, and so they'd be the ones infected if we let schools operate as normal. It's really not hard to understand.
Healthy people under 60 (ie almost all parents) who have contracted and then died of or been hospitalised by covid are an extremely tiny number. Even those under 60 with underlying health problems who died or were hospitalised is a pretty small number.
How much longer does central office think people are going to swallow this bullsh8t?
You'd be the expert in swallowing bullshit, since you've already refused the vaccine you were offered just because you don't want the government to 'put you on a list'. Most other people would take it in a heartbeat, given the chance.
Your credibility in moaning about why we can't go back to normal immediately is therefore, er, not strong.
Has he refused a vaccine? Not sure that’s true. He is not an antivaxxer, I’m pretty certain he’s said that several times.
I'm afraid he's said explicitly that he'll only consider taking the vaccine himself when it's available privately, and will never accept it from the NHS because he doesn't want to be on the list of the kind of people who take vaccines. I wish I were joking. He also said recently that he was 59, so assuming he was telling the truth about that, he's almost certainly been offered an NHS jab by now.
“the kind of people who take vaccines”.
Really? Is this true Contrarian?
???
I have taken plenty of vaccines, including most recently a flu vaccine (which I paid for privately) in the autumn of 2019.
I am sure the vaccines are safe and very effective. And that is one reason I am wondering why we are not out of lockdown when 25 million people have been given them.
I work from home and my contact with people outside my bubble is almost zero. Indoors, completely zero.
Its just not a priority. When we open up, it will be and I will have a vaccine.
But to be clear you have been offered a vaccine, and refused it? Why?
I got sent a letter recently and I just have not bothered to make an appointment. Its not like I told some poor NHS person to go f8ck themselves.
You don’t want to be locked down and don’t want to be vaccinated (at least not on anyone’s terms but your own) either. So what, exactly, are you prepared to do to bring this crisis to an end?
I don't see the crisis in the terms you do and never have. But in your terms, I have obeyed every lockdown rule going. And I will until the government lifts the restrictions. At which point I will get a vaccine.
In the end it comes down to this.
I have never disagreed with a single UK government policy more fundamentally in my life than the lockdown policy. I have argued against it with everything I have for a year.
I have never, ever despised a British government more than the Johnson government. Given the choice, and given the fact is ain;t harming anybody, why on earth would I do what that government wants?
Because it's a logical nightmare. You don't like the fact that the government quarantined you in a cell (to put it in terms you'd enjoy), so just to spite them you'll refuse to take the key that will let you out again. That's your position. I believe the technical term for it is 'nuts'.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
I struggle with mid weeks to be honest. We 'celebrate' Saturday by having a take away delivered. And I know it's Friday because I have to put the bin out and there might be rugby on the telly the next day to provide a change. But Tues, Wed and Thursday - just a grey, unforgiving emptiness. At various points in those days I will think 'jeez, is it still only Wednesday or Thursday'?
Which is why his Government is trying to pass the most authoritarian legislation of our lifetime.
Literally thought crimes...
Boris's admirers need to come to terms with the fact that Boris is instinctively only about what benefits Boris. The libertarian stuff served a purpose when he had to cosy up to Speccie readers during the New Labour 'nanny state' era. All that's been ditched. He now has the Red Wall voters to think about who, he's calculated, get their satisfaction from raw-meat authoritarianism.
Yes, that is true.
Banning any protest that annoys a policeman, and putting secret police into nightclubs. Preparing to nuke countries for Internet trolling.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
There was an interesting piece on "lockdown secrets" at the end of Channel 4 news. It seems quite a few people rather like it and don't want it to end.
Many pensioners have seen little change in their lifestyles, but they'd like to see their grandkids.
We also have to bear in mind many people work to live and don't enjoy their jobs very much, and like their bosses even less. They might enjoy the freedom of working from home, particularly if they're on furlough. But they'd also like to see their family and friends.
I think the ideal situation for a minority (not the young or the big bosses) would be one where they can socially do as they please, within reason, but are told to work from home by edict.
Nail on head. I'd even extend that to the young in London to be honest.
I have been working throughout, so haven't missed too much. I miss the theatre and football, but am not that bothered by the rest. Like many others I have rediscovered domestic joys. Mrs Foxy misses shopping, but I have enough stuff to last me out.
I do miss wearing proper clothes. I have a half dozen suits not worn in a year, and I do like to dress well. Scrubs are so saggy and baggy.
Have to say I'm much the same as you, @Foxy. Work keeps me busy and plenty of contact with colleagues and clients. After years of commuting, I've enjoyed working at home and not trudging to the tube station in the dark or coming home in the dark.
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
Yes, and while there is no denying that some people's mental health is adversely affected, there is another group rather relieved at less social interaction in the flesh. Children no longer physically bullied etc.
Hell is other people. Online it is easier to enjoy solitude.
An analogue comment for a digital world. Most bullying is of the cyber variety these days I suspect. And scores of children who had a degree of protection by being near teachers had to face abusive parents all day at home.
I have been working throughout, so haven't missed too much. I miss the theatre and football, but am not that bothered by the rest. Like many others I have rediscovered domestic joys. Mrs Foxy misses shopping, but I have enough stuff to last me out.
I do miss wearing proper clothes. I have a half dozen suits not worn in a year, and I do like to dress well. Scrubs are so saggy and baggy.
Have to say I'm much the same as you, @Foxy. Work keeps me busy and plenty of contact with colleagues and clients. After years of commuting, I've enjoyed working at home and not trudging to the tube station in the dark or coming home in the dark.
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
Yes, and while there is no denying that some people's mental health is adversely affected, there is another group rather relieved at less social interaction in the flesh. Children no longer physically bullied etc.
Hell is other people. Online it is easier to enjoy solitude.
You have already admitted you are quite a serious introvert, however. You are "lucky" - lockdown suits you
Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, the country’s paper of record, went further, labelling the EU “the work of the devil.” He told Sky News Australia: “The European Union is essentially the work of the devil.” He continued: “Its operating procedure is this – it ties itself up in ludicrous regulatory knots and imposes grotesque cost disadvantages on it itself. It then tries to export those cost disadvantages through the treaty system and multilateralise them.”
That's quite a brilliant summary of how the EU operates. Fair dinkum
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Thanks. Reassuring to know I am not alone. A friend has just this moment texted me to say Yes, he too feels exactly this
So it must be a phenomenon. Perhaps it is a form of institutionalisation. We are like lifers in jail
I've found routine is very important. Parts of the day are ticked off. Crazy stuff like always having a glass of cold pepsi at precisely 6 oclock.
I gather prisoners say that keeping a routine is a way they cope.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
With respect the tragedy is the 126,000 lost lives
Doesn't make the days any less grey and monotonous, though.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
With respect the tragedy is the 126,000 lost lives
Indeed. As are the millions of connections and interactions lost every weekend this goes on, every friendship never made, every lover never met, every grandparent left alone, every wedding cancelled.
I have been working throughout, so haven't missed too much. I miss the theatre and football, but am not that bothered by the rest. Like many others I have rediscovered domestic joys. Mrs Foxy misses shopping, but I have enough stuff to last me out.
I do miss wearing proper clothes. I have a half dozen suits not worn in a year, and I do like to dress well. Scrubs are so saggy and baggy.
Have to say I'm much the same as you, @Foxy. Work keeps me busy and plenty of contact with colleagues and clients. After years of commuting, I've enjoyed working at home and not trudging to the tube station in the dark or coming home in the dark.
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
Yes, and while there is no denying that some people's mental health is adversely affected, there is another group rather relieved at less social interaction in the flesh. Children no longer physically bullied etc.
Hell is other people. Online it is easier to enjoy solitude.
You have already admitted you are quite a serious introvert, however. You are "lucky" - lockdown suits you
Oh, certainly so. Like half the population I am an introvert*, and quite happy in my own company. Mrs Foxy is a bit more extroverted, but after 3 decades we have learnt to tolerate each others foibles.
*though a lot of people at work would rate me an extrovert. I have learnt to fake it pretty effectively.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
With respect the tragedy is the 126,000 lost lives
These things are relative. It's rather like telling a poor child in Moss Side, who only has beans on toast to eat every day of the damned week, that babies with kwashiorkor starving to death in some Christ-forsaken corner of the Horn of Africa have it worse. They undoubtedly do, but it doesn't mean that the life of the kid from Moss Side ain't a crock of shit.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
The weather is part of it. Very different to last March.
Endless cold and wind. Just an extension of February, really. Not freezing, but nasty enough to usher you indoors. And I have walked in enough parks to last a lifetime.
So the days roll by, with an aching slowness. Changeless, and pointless. A quiet circle of Dantean Hell, designed by puritans.
I am enjoying Masterchef tho
Was it that nice last March? I seem to recall that the best Spring since records began really got started in April, but I might very well be mistaken.
Regardless, we could certainly do with a repetition, but I doubt we'll be fortunate enough to get it.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
There was an interesting piece on "lockdown secrets" at the end of Channel 4 news. It seems quite a few people rather like it and don't want it to end.
Many pensioners have seen little change in their lifestyles, but they'd like to see their grandkids.
We also have to bear in mind many people work to live and don't enjoy their jobs very much, and like their bosses even less. They might enjoy the freedom of working from home, particularly if they're on furlough. But they'd also like to see their family and friends.
I think the ideal situation for a minority (not the young or the big bosses) would be one where they can socially do as they please, within reason, but are told to work from home by edict.
I got extremely bored during the 6 weeks I was furloughed because my wife wasn't and I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. I think in the second week I messaged the big boss and asked for reassurance that this wasn't going to be permanent for me.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
The weather is part of it. Very different to last March.
Endless cold and wind. Just an extension of February, really. Not freezing, but nasty enough to usher you indoors. And I have walked in enough parks to last a lifetime.
So the days roll by, with an aching slowness. Changeless, and pointless. A quiet circle of Dantean Hell, designed by puritans.
I am enjoying Masterchef tho
With respect, I think you are misremembering.
Lockdown 1 didn't start until 23rd March and the weather improved soon afterwards. April 2020 was lovely but March 2020 was very similar to March 2021.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
With respect the tragedy is the 126,000 lost lives
These things are relative. It's rather like telling a poor child in Moss Side, who only has beans on toast to eat every day of the damned week, that babies with kwashiorkor starving to death in some Christ-forsaken corner of the Horn of Africa have it worse. They undoubtedly do, but it doesn't mean that the life of the kid from Moss Side ain't a crock of shit.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
The weather is part of it. Very different to last March.
Endless cold and wind. Just an extension of February, really. Not freezing, but nasty enough to usher you indoors. And I have walked in enough parks to last a lifetime.
So the days roll by, with an aching slowness. Changeless, and pointless. A quiet circle of Dantean Hell, designed by puritans.
I am enjoying Masterchef tho
Was it that nice last March? I seem to recall that the best Spring since records began really got started in April, but I might very well be mistaken.
Regardless, we could certainly do with a repetition, but I doubt we'll be fortunate enough to get it.
Last year was what was known in rural circles as a Blackthorn Winter with a cold snap in March and early April which delayed the blossoming of the Blackthorn. I have seen Blackthorn blossom as early as the first week of February but the last few years it has been late regularly. Indeed it is not yet blooming this year when sometimes it is over by mid March.
I have been working throughout, so haven't missed too much. I miss the theatre and football, but am not that bothered by the rest. Like many others I have rediscovered domestic joys. Mrs Foxy misses shopping, but I have enough stuff to last me out.
I do miss wearing proper clothes. I have a half dozen suits not worn in a year, and I do like to dress well. Scrubs are so saggy and baggy.
Have to say I'm much the same as you, @Foxy. Work keeps me busy and plenty of contact with colleagues and clients. After years of commuting, I've enjoyed working at home and not trudging to the tube station in the dark or coming home in the dark.
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
Yes, and while there is no denying that some people's mental health is adversely affected, there is another group rather relieved at less social interaction in the flesh. Children no longer physically bullied etc.
Hell is other people. Online it is easier to enjoy solitude.
An analogue comment for a digital world. Most bullying is of the cyber variety these days I suspect. And scores of children who had a degree of protection by being near teachers had to face abusive parents all day at home.
No, surveys consistently show that there is a significant minority whose mental health is better over the last year.
Max, has the delivery schedule for Novavax changed? The UK government press release mentions that deliveries are due to begin in the second half of the year. It would be fantastic we’re now expecting the first tranche in April.
The CEO of Novavax has said the first deliveries of their vaccine will be in April from the Czechia site to the UK and that UK manufacturing will be ramping up in April and reach capacity during May. Kate Bingham also confirmed the latter and said that Teeside site had produced it's first batches (that was in early February).
I think the comprehensive early success of the preliminary readout has allowed them to accelerate production.
Thanks Max - that’s great news. Fingers crossed the doses arriving from Czechia aren’t waylaid by Van der Leyden’s chicanery.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
The weather is part of it. Very different to last March.
Endless cold and wind. Just an extension of February, really. Not freezing, but nasty enough to usher you indoors. And I have walked in enough parks to last a lifetime.
So the days roll by, with an aching slowness. Changeless, and pointless. A quiet circle of Dantean Hell, designed by puritans.
I am enjoying Masterchef tho
With respect, I think you are misremembering.
Lockdown 1 didn't start until 23rd March and the weather improved soon afterwards. April 2020 was lovely but March 2020 was very similar to March 2021.
Quite so. Now I look back, it was cold when I - dramatic pause - fled London.
The sun kicked off in April, and ohhhhhh, how glorious it was. Every bloody day. Endless generous sunshine. And the eerie silence of lockdown 1. I will never forget it. Just as I won't ever forget the grinding, relentless, eternal quality of lockdown 3.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
I have been working throughout, so haven't missed too much. I miss the theatre and football, but am not that bothered by the rest. Like many others I have rediscovered domestic joys. Mrs Foxy misses shopping, but I have enough stuff to last me out.
I do miss wearing proper clothes. I have a half dozen suits not worn in a year, and I do like to dress well. Scrubs are so saggy and baggy.
Have to say I'm much the same as you, @Foxy. Work keeps me busy and plenty of contact with colleagues and clients. After years of commuting, I've enjoyed working at home and not trudging to the tube station in the dark or coming home in the dark.
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
Yes, and while there is no denying that some people's mental health is adversely affected, there is another group rather relieved at less social interaction in the flesh. Children no longer physically bullied etc.
Hell is other people. Online it is easier to enjoy solitude.
An analogue comment for a digital world. Most bullying is of the cyber variety these days I suspect. And scores of children who had a degree of protection by being near teachers had to face abusive parents all day at home.
No, surveys consistently show that there is a significant minority whose mental health is better over the last year.
No? No to what? I didn’t argue otherwise. In any case even that poll (is it even reliable?) shows that many more feel the opposite. It’s not clear what point you are trying to make.
I've just rewound iplayer to check this - JVT did indeed say "we are only talking about a few more months". Did he misspeak? - I bloody hope so.
Why do you think Hancock and Van Tam are so blase, so casual and relaxed about your precious timetable? Why is it manifestly no big deal to them?
Could it be perhaps, that people such as yourself and the vast majority on here have swallowed so much of what the government had to tell you hook line and sinker, poured scorn on those who asked questioned government policy such as myself, and actively disparaged the few who oppose government policy such as Toby Young and Julia HB?
because of almost everybody on here, and the voters, Hancock can do what he wants. He can take his own sweet time.
And that is manifestly what he intends to do.
Remind me again why he's doing this? Is it titillation or something?
No its power. exactly the same reason the government wants another six months of massive sweeping arbitrary powers. Why does it what those if we're coming out of lockdown in June?
Yes, the way the power-mad government is keeping the schools closed is just terrible. Totalitarian, really.
Oh come on ... schools may be back open but they are nowhere near back to normal ... social distancing, masks, teacher assessment instead of exams, no activities outside the class room and on and on. The damage to education caused by this power-mad government advised by a single-minded cabal of unaccountable scientists will last for years and may not be fully repaired for a generation or more.
How can you possibly expect things to be back to normal when almost everyone in the school is unvaccinated? If these measures weren't in place, children could become superspreaders again and delay the whole unlocking. Which alternative do you prefer?
I prefer balance. I prefer a proportionate response. I prefer that we acknowledge that we will always have to live with a level of risk. We have vaccinated the vulnerable - time to accelerate a return to normality; we owe it to our children.
I have been working throughout, so haven't missed too much. I miss the theatre and football, but am not that bothered by the rest. Like many others I have rediscovered domestic joys. Mrs Foxy misses shopping, but I have enough stuff to last me out.
I do miss wearing proper clothes. I have a half dozen suits not worn in a year, and I do like to dress well. Scrubs are so saggy and baggy.
Have to say I'm much the same as you, @Foxy. Work keeps me busy and plenty of contact with colleagues and clients. After years of commuting, I've enjoyed working at home and not trudging to the tube station in the dark or coming home in the dark.
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
Yes, and while there is no denying that some people's mental health is adversely affected, there is another group rather relieved at less social interaction in the flesh. Children no longer physically bullied etc.
Hell is other people. Online it is easier to enjoy solitude.
You have already admitted you are quite a serious introvert, however. You are "lucky" - lockdown suits you
Oh, certainly so. Like half the population I am an introvert*, and quite happy in my own company. Mrs Foxy is a bit more extroverted, but after 3 decades we have learnt to tolerate each others foibles.
*though a lot of people at work would rate me an extrovert. I have learnt to fake it pretty effectively.
Nothing wrong with introverts, my older daughter is intensely that. It has made her resilient during lockdown.
I'm a kind of reclusive extrovert. I need a lot of alone time, for work, and just for peace of mind, and yet I love company, and pubs, and the Groucho, and gossip, and crowds, and Heathrow Terminal 5, and exotic travel, and the whirl of London life.
It has been painful giving all of it up, for so long. But I too am lucky that I do work alone, at home, anyway, so I am used to it, kinda. And I can still earn
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
I think that's the only thing my wife and I have done to make the week have an end is we make an effort to go and visit my parents on the weekend and spend time with them and my sister's family, it makes a change on a Sunday and we usually do a nice roast or something along those lines.
On Saturdays we try and get out of the house early and get out of London for a bit. We got the train up to Cambridge a couple of Saturdays ago with some super cheap £8.50 return fare. As you may already be able to tell, we've fucked off the stay at home rule to a certain degree, at least to be able to get out of London. We still don't visit friends or more distant relatives but not being in London one day per week has definitely helped, it was my wife's idea. I'd highly recommend it.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
There was an interesting piece on "lockdown secrets" at the end of Channel 4 news. It seems quite a few people rather like it and don't want it to end.
I have found getting back into the swing of going out to work after Drakeford's third lockdown, which started in mid December was a trial for the first couple of weeks.
Wales are doing a lot more second doses, that chart is percentage of population to have received a first dose.
Ah, that explains it. I had thought maybe they were using a different population estimate or something, but the difference is now too large for that to be realistic.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
With respect the tragedy is the 126,000 lost lives
These things are relative. It's rather like telling a poor child in Moss Side, who only has beans on toast to eat every day of the damned week, that babies with kwashiorkor starving to death in some Christ-forsaken corner of the Horn of Africa have it worse. They undoubtedly do, but it doesn't mean that the life of the kid from Moss Side ain't a crock of shit.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
The weather is part of it. Very different to last March.
Endless cold and wind. Just an extension of February, really. Not freezing, but nasty enough to usher you indoors. And I have walked in enough parks to last a lifetime.
So the days roll by, with an aching slowness. Changeless, and pointless. A quiet circle of Dantean Hell, designed by puritans.
I am enjoying Masterchef tho
Was it that nice last March? I seem to recall that the best Spring since records began really got started in April, but I might very well be mistaken.
Regardless, we could certainly do with a repetition, but I doubt we'll be fortunate enough to get it.
It was sunny throughout most of March (and indeed from the tail end of Feb) but didn't turn warm until mid month. The last part of the month was very warm for the time of year. In the south, at least.
Then again, today was a cracking day by the coast, with a lot of warm sunshine.
It would appear that herbal steam treatments and prayer may be insufficient to protect one against coronavirus. The World Health Organisation has doubtless been informed of the results of the trial.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
With respect the tragedy is the 126,000 lost lives
These things are relative. It's rather like telling a poor child in Moss Side, who only has beans on toast to eat every day of the damned week, that babies with kwashiorkor starving to death in some Christ-forsaken corner of the Horn of Africa have it worse. They undoubtedly do, but it doesn't mean that the life of the kid from Moss Side ain't a crock of shit.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes.
Me too. It’s a horrible grey existence of monotony occasionally punctuated by work.
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
The weather is part of it. Very different to last March.
Endless cold and wind. Just an extension of February, really. Not freezing, but nasty enough to usher you indoors. And I have walked in enough parks to last a lifetime.
So the days roll by, with an aching slowness. Changeless, and pointless. A quiet circle of Dantean Hell, designed by puritans.
I am enjoying Masterchef tho
Was it that nice last March? I seem to recall that the best Spring since records began really got started in April, but I might very well be mistaken.
Regardless, we could certainly do with a repetition, but I doubt we'll be fortunate enough to get it.
It was sunny throughout most of March (and indeed from the tail end of Feb) but didn't turn warm until mid month. The last part of the month was very warm for the time of year. In the south, at least.
Then again, today was a cracking day by the coast, with a lot of warm sunshine.
The Central England Temperature yesterday was above the 95th percentile, but, as with all things, this period of high pressure will also pass.
I've just rewound iplayer to check this - JVT did indeed say "we are only talking about a few more months". Did he misspeak? - I bloody hope so.
Why do you think Hancock and Van Tam are so blase, so casual and relaxed about your precious timetable? Why is it manifestly no big deal to them?
Could it be perhaps, that people such as yourself and the vast majority on here have swallowed so much of what the government had to tell you hook line and sinker, poured scorn on those who asked questioned government policy such as myself, and actively disparaged the few who oppose government policy such as Toby Young and Julia HB?
because of almost everybody on here, and the voters, Hancock can do what he wants. He can take his own sweet time.
And that is manifestly what he intends to do.
Remind me again why he's doing this? Is it titillation or something?
No its power. exactly the same reason the government wants another six months of massive sweeping arbitrary powers. Why does it what those if we're coming out of lockdown in June?
Yes, the way the power-mad government is keeping the schools closed is just terrible. Totalitarian, really.
Oh come on ... schools may be back open but they are nowhere near back to normal ... social distancing, masks, teacher assessment instead of exams, no activities outside the class room and on and on. The damage to education caused by this power-mad government advised by a single-minded cabal of unaccountable scientists will last for years and may not be fully repaired for a generation or more.
Cracking points
"may not be repaired for a generation or more"
During the last World War, education was massively more disrupted.
It made no appreciable difference to post war educational levels, and indeed IQ continued to rise throughout.
Well I'll have to defer to your knowledge on that ... but Britain is a very different country now to the aspirational post war era.
It would appear that herbal steam treatments and prayer may be insufficient to protect one against coronavirus. The World Health Organisation has doubtless been informed of the results of the trial.
Herbal steam treatment, that's on the same level of how lots of Europe views the AZN vaccine....
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
I think that's the only thing my wife and I have done to make the week have an end is we make an effort to go and visit my parents on the weekend and spend time with them and my sister's family, it makes a change on a Sunday and we usually do a nice roast or something along those lines.
On Saturdays we try and get out of the house early and get out of London for a bit. We got the train up to Cambridge a couple of Saturdays ago with some super cheap £8.50 return fare. As you may already be able to tell, we've fucked off the stay at home rule to a certain degree, at least to be able to get out of London. We still don't visit friends or more distant relatives but not being in London one day per week has definitely helped, it was my wife's idea. I'd highly recommend it.
And nobody has pestered you for the crime of daring to ride a train if not for work? That's mildly encouraging. Though mind you, I'll probably wait and see if April 12th goes to plan before making a trip to Cambridge, anyway. We're very used to the place being bustling, it might be a bit depressing if it's just people walking aimlessly around the available green spaces and it's otherwise deserted.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
I think that's the only thing my wife and I have done to make the week have an end is we make an effort to go and visit my parents on the weekend and spend time with them and my sister's family, it makes a change on a Sunday and we usually do a nice roast or something along those lines.
On Saturdays we try and get out of the house early and get out of London for a bit. We got the train up to Cambridge a couple of Saturdays ago with some super cheap £8.50 return fare. As you may already be able to tell, we've fucked off the stay at home rule to a certain degree, at least to be able to get out of London. We still don't visit friends or more distant relatives but not being in London one day per week has definitely helped, it was my wife's idea. I'd highly recommend it.
I have done that. When I was in the middle of peak despair of Lockdown 1 I shifted myself to spooky coastal Essex for a couple of days (with express permission of my boss, and a letter, to show it was essential work).
It REALLY helped. Kinda nudged the stylus out of a horrible groove.
If I get the black dog again, I will repeat.
As it happens - like I said - I am not unhappy at the moment, just inert, apart from work. But I do have some serious work to do, and lockdown is oddly helping. So I will probably stay put and shtum and toil away until April 12, by which time my project will be largely done.
But by April 12 I will have immunity from my jab and the pubs will be open and presumably the weather will be better. THEN I will have some SERIOUS fun. Finally
It was sunny throughout most of March (and indeed from the tail end of Feb) but didn't turn warm until mid month. The last part of the month was very warm for the time of year. In the south, at least.
Then again, today was a cracking day by the coast, with a lot of warm sunshine.
I've had a look at the forecast, which is available right through to March 30th now. Practically every day is the same, non-descript grey, about 12-13 degrees, maybe an occasional glimpse of the Sun if you're lucky.
Even the bloody weather has grown dull, monotonous and instantly forgettable.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
I think that's the only thing my wife and I have done to make the week have an end is we make an effort to go and visit my parents on the weekend and spend time with them and my sister's family, it makes a change on a Sunday and we usually do a nice roast or something along those lines.
On Saturdays we try and get out of the house early and get out of London for a bit. We got the train up to Cambridge a couple of Saturdays ago with some super cheap £8.50 return fare. As you may already be able to tell, we've fucked off the stay at home rule to a certain degree, at least to be able to get out of London. We still don't visit friends or more distant relatives but not being in London one day per week has definitely helped, it was my wife's idea. I'd highly recommend it.
And nobody has pestered you for the crime of daring to ride a train if not for work? That's mildly encouraging. Though mind you, I'll probably wait and see if April 12th goes to plan before making a trip to Cambridge, anyway. We're very used to the place being bustling, it might be a bit depressing if it's just people walking aimlessly around the available green spaces and it's otherwise deserted.
Nah, who would bother us? I mean anyone else on the train is also breaking the same stay at home rule so it's not like they can say anything to us. It was nice to see Cambridge with not many people there, but very sad that we couldn't go to the pub or have a nice meal.
I think this Saturday we're heading out to Hastings or Brighton. We have a really good friend in Brighton so we might avoid that until after the 12th for fear of breaking the serious rules of indoor socialising, she's been begging for people to come and visit her too because she's feeling a bit lonely.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes. But there is something beautiful in that. I guarantee that you will long for that rhythm in the future.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
I think that's the only thing my wife and I have done to make the week have an end is we make an effort to go and visit my parents on the weekend and spend time with them and my sister's family, it makes a change on a Sunday and we usually do a nice roast or something along those lines.
On Saturdays we try and get out of the house early and get out of London for a bit. We got the train up to Cambridge a couple of Saturdays ago with some super cheap £8.50 return fare. As you may already be able to tell, we've fucked off the stay at home rule to a certain degree, at least to be able to get out of London. We still don't visit friends or more distant relatives but not being in London one day per week has definitely helped, it was my wife's idea. I'd highly recommend it.
I have done that. When I was in the middle of peak despair of Lockdown 1 I shifted myself to spooky coastal Essex for a couple of days (with express permission of my boss, and a letter, to show it was essential work).
It REALLY helped. Kinda nudged the stylus out of a horrible groove.
If I get the black dog again, I will repeat.
As it happens - like I said - I am not unhappy at the moment, just inert, apart from work. But I do have some serious work to do, and lockdown is oddly helping. So I will probably stay put and shtum and toil away until April 12, by which time my project will be largely done.
But by April 12 I will have immunity from my jab and the pubs will be open and presumably the weather will be better. THEN I will have some SERIOUS fun. Finally
In the middle of Lockdown 1, I mean proper lockdown 1 I had to go and get a bunch of stuff from the office, my wife did too (we don't work far from each other) so we decided to take my fancy camera and make a bit of a day of it. London with no people, no traffic and no noise is a really eerie place. I don't think it will ever be like that again in my lifetime.
Feels like a shifting of groups 10 and 11 to the new vaccines and stockpiling AZ for 5-17 year olds at this stage. It's the only thing that makes sense.
Much hysteria around vaccine supplies tonight, a bit less about our European friends/enemies I suppose (except from those who personally blame VDL for the letter on vaccines that has circulated tonight).
But why the hysteria? Given the volume of first jabs done in January, the need for second doses in April was surely always going to reduce the scope for first jabs in April? First jabs would only have kept pace with a huge increase in supply. So it looks like such an increase isn't going to happen, for whatever reason, but I don't see this as too much of a setback.
There will still be millions of jabs in April, just that a lot of them will be second doses, surely?
It really isn't hysterical to react sharply to a sudden unexpected drop in vaccine supplies, a shortage expected to last a month, when vaccines are probably are only route out of the greatest crisis since World War 2, a crisis which is killing tens of thousands.
This isn't an unexpectedly lost by-election, FFS
The sudden unexpected drop that it now appears we were told about three days ago?
It seems to have taken an awful lot of people by surprise, not just professional over-reacters like me. This includes the journalists covering Covid, and members of parliament
Don't worry, I think everyone is a bit on edge and worried about the first unlockdown being delayed.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
Weekends don't really exist any more, that doesn't help - it adds to the blurring quality of lockdown existence. The only difference I notice is the shopping hours are shorter on Sunday, so if I am going to do some complex cookery, I need to go out earlier.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
I think that's the only thing my wife and I have done to make the week have an end is we make an effort to go and visit my parents on the weekend and spend time with them and my sister's family, it makes a change on a Sunday and we usually do a nice roast or something along those lines.
On Saturdays we try and get out of the house early and get out of London for a bit. We got the train up to Cambridge a couple of Saturdays ago with some super cheap £8.50 return fare. As you may already be able to tell, we've fucked off the stay at home rule to a certain degree, at least to be able to get out of London. We still don't visit friends or more distant relatives but not being in London one day per week has definitely helped, it was my wife's idea. I'd highly recommend it.
And nobody has pestered you for the crime of daring to ride a train if not for work? That's mildly encouraging. Though mind you, I'll probably wait and see if April 12th goes to plan before making a trip to Cambridge, anyway. We're very used to the place being bustling, it might be a bit depressing if it's just people walking aimlessly around the available green spaces and it's otherwise deserted.
Nah, who would bother us? I mean anyone else on the train is also breaking the same stay at home rule so it's not like they can say anything to us. It was nice to see Cambridge with not many people there, but very sad that we couldn't go to the pub or have a nice meal.
I think this Saturday we're heading out to Hastings or Brighton. We have a really good friend in Brighton so we might avoid that until after the 12th for fear of breaking the serious rules of indoor socialising, she's been begging for people to come and visit her too because she's feeling a bit lonely.
A fair point re: the trains.
Friend has birthday at end of month, might see if they want to meet if they've no other plans. Might invite them home, might stay outdoors. Depends on how they feel about the Plague, if they already have plans and, perhaps, the state of the weather. I've no particular compunctions about entertaining guests at this stage of the game.
I’ve sunk into a kind of monastic solitude. I don’t do anything except work. Sleep. Work. Go on PB. See my older daughter and her new dog. Nothing else. I am inert. Not especially unhappy. But immobile, and silent
Nothing changes. One day is the same as the next. I feel like a peasant turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. The rain falls. Lichen grows.
Yes. But there is something beautiful in that. I guarantee that you will long for that rhythm in the future.
I am sure you are right. I love the clarity of thought I have when I am working during lockdown 3.
I have no social obligations, no one calls me (people have stopped calling each other), there is nowhere to go and nothing to do, the world is shut; I no longer feel stressed, just bored and frozen, and thus I pour myself into the work. And it is good, what I do. I know it.
If only I could work or sleep all the time. It's the other hours that are problematic.
Comments
Enough supply to get the firsts restarted may be forthcoming next month, but let's just say I'll believe it when I see it and not before.
Mette Frederiksen is the successor to Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
This is the sister part of the UK Labour party.
The govt doesn't want to lockdown the economy more than a day than is necessary. They would love to throw the world open to kids and teens and everyone. With every hour that passes, with everything shut, and everyone at home, our debt mountain grows.
Silly accusation. Tsk.
In the end it comes down to this.
I have never disagreed with a single UK government policy more fundamentally in my life than the lockdown policy. I have argued against it with everything I have for a year.
I have never, ever despised a British government more than the Johnson government. Given the choice, and given the fact is ain;t harming anybody, why on earth would I do what that government wants?
I think the comprehensive early success of the preliminary readout has allowed them to accelerate production.
Our vaccine strategy is tip-top; we've procured a diverse and varied supply of all sorts of vaccines that *anticipated* issues like this. Furthermore, the one thing a top-down centralised bureaucratic NHS is good for is a single national war-time goal like this, and they'll find a way of shuffling the deck so the show goes on.
So, I think we'll be ok.
Mind you there are millions of children and grandchildren who really do care for their aged parents and grandparents who do fall into the highest risk and death toll so far
Literally thought crimes...
I try to walk every day - have missed the odd day. A bit like you, my work shirts and suits are gathering dust and I begin to suspect most won't ever be worn again.
I've slept better and felt more relaxed through all this but, and I want to stress this, I do miss the world. I look forward to being anti-social at my local cafe and hopefully getting out to the races in the summer. I'm not a big one for crowds, festivals and the like but I will be nice when the universe becomes a bigger place again.
Mrs Stodge and I have been incredibly fortunate - we have our work and our garden and while we have each other, we have long periods apart during the day.
It's probably fair to say I've adapted - human beings are incredibly good at that. Between adaptation and ingenuity, we can deal with most things.
For the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca, the independent testing performed by the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control usually takes around four days to complete. These tests are to check the physical appearance of the vaccine in the vial, to check it’s the correct material, and importantly to measure its potency (strength). Potency testing could involve either in vitro or in vivo tests, or both, (In vivo refers to when research or work is done with or within an entire, living organism. Examples can include studies in animal models or human clinical trials. In vitro is used to describe work that's performed outside of a living organism.) which have been specifically designed for each product to indicate its potency. It’s expressed in units and is the quantitative measure of biological activity based on the attribute of the product which is linked to the relevant biological properties.
Normally, for a vaccine or other biological product, the potency of the product reflects the quantity of active ingredient and therefore the assay should predict clinical benefit. The complexity of biologics means potency assays should provide an indication of not only quantity, but also the total activity of an active ingredient. Larger amounts of potency correlate with greater activity (preferably linear). Potency assays must possess characteristics that are amenable to validation, indicate stability and are precise enough to assure that the dose is safe and effective throughout its shelf life.
The laboratory will also carry out a thorough review of the manufacturer batch documentation that describes the production process and quality control testing performed by the company. This work is just one part of a broader set of quality and safety checks by the manufacturer which – because this is a complex biological product – cannot be sped up further. This is an ongoing process to ensure continually have the best expert staff and resources to enable us to complete our testing as quickly as possible, without compromising on quality. 🙂
We also have to bear in mind many people work to live and don't enjoy their jobs very much, and like their bosses even less. They might enjoy the freedom of working from home, particularly if they're on furlough. But they'd also like to see their family and friends.
I think the ideal situation for a minority (not the young or the big bosses) would be one where they can socially do as they please, within reason, but are told to work from home by edict.
So it must be a phenomenon. Perhaps it is a form of institutionalisation. We are like lifers in jail
The weekends are the worst. Every Saturday is a tragedy.
Hell is other people. Online it is easier to enjoy solitude.
And tbf your (occasionally hyperreactive) posts liven up this site no end 👍
https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/1372280814973681672
Ill-prepared then, inasmuch as they didn't have a ready response.
Endless cold and wind. Just an extension of February, really. Not freezing, but nasty enough to usher you indoors. And I have walked in enough parks to last a lifetime.
So the days roll by, with an aching slowness. Changeless, and pointless. A quiet circle of Dantean Hell, designed by puritans.
I am enjoying Masterchef tho
We are in the slough of despond.
Banning any protest that annoys a policeman, and putting secret police into nightclubs. Preparing to nuke countries for Internet trolling.
These are not the actions of a libertarian.
On your earlier point, yes I also feel the same. Every single day just sort of blends into the next one, there's a cycle of wake up, work, lunch, work, possible after work sex, make dinner, have dinner, see what's new on Netflix, possible evening sex, go to sleep.
I gather prisoners say that keeping a routine is a way they cope.
*though a lot of people at work would rate me an extrovert. I have learnt to fake it pretty effectively.
Regardless, we could certainly do with a repetition, but I doubt we'll be fortunate enough to get it.
The other day I realised I had been in my flat, in London, alone, without stepping out of the front door, for THREE SOLID DAYS. I exercise indoors: HIIT. I have enough wine to last the century. I am a flipping hermit.
Some days I barely leave the bedroom. I wake up, make a coffee, go back to bed, work in bed, message people in bed, skip dinner because I am fasting (losing lockdown weight), watch TV in bed, read a book in bed, drink wine in bed, go to sleep. in my bed.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
Lockdown 1 didn't start until 23rd March and the weather improved soon afterwards. April 2020 was lovely but March 2020 was very similar to March 2021.
From my weatherstation (sad, I know):
March 2020 High: 14.5C (26/3); Low: -1.6C (6/3); Average:7.1C; Precipitation: 47.7mm
March 2021 (to date) High:14.3C (16/3); Low: -3.8C (8/3); Average: 6.0C; Precip: 27.4mm
By 11 April 2020 we had highs of 25C.
https://www.shponline.co.uk/mental-health/almost-1-in-4-britons-report-a-positive-improvement-in-mental-health-during-lockdown/
Even domestically manufactured doses will be inbound into the national supply when given from the manufacturer to the NHS.
I doubt the NHS makes much of a distinction between domestic manufactured and imported, its all simply coming into the supply surely?
It just sounds like a piece of bureaucratic jargon for inputs rather than literally meaning imports.
The sun kicked off in April, and ohhhhhh, how glorious it was. Every bloody day. Endless generous sunshine. And the eerie silence of lockdown 1. I will never forget it. Just as I won't ever forget the grinding, relentless, eternal quality of lockdown 3.
Wales: 57.3 (+1.3)
England: 51.3 (+1.0)
Scotland: 48.8 (+1.1)
N. Ireland: 48.5 (+0.9)
What a fantastic job Mr Drakeford is doing
https://i.imgur.com/eY8nOTj.png
I'm a kind of reclusive extrovert. I need a lot of alone time, for work, and just for peace of mind, and yet I love company, and pubs, and the Groucho, and gossip, and crowds, and Heathrow Terminal 5, and exotic travel, and the whirl of London life.
It has been painful giving all of it up, for so long. But I too am lucky that I do work alone, at home, anyway, so I am used to it, kinda. And I can still earn
On Saturdays we try and get out of the house early and get out of London for a bit. We got the train up to Cambridge a couple of Saturdays ago with some super cheap £8.50 return fare. As you may already be able to tell, we've fucked off the stay at home rule to a certain degree, at least to be able to get out of London. We still don't visit friends or more distant relatives but not being in London one day per week has definitely helped, it was my wife's idea. I'd highly recommend it.
Fatigued by indolence? And I detest lazy people.
Then again, today was a cracking day by the coast, with a lot of warm sunshine.
It is the percentage of the 18+ population that has had at least 1 vaccination dose.
The numbers above are the first and second doses vs population.
It REALLY helped. Kinda nudged the stylus out of a horrible groove.
If I get the black dog again, I will repeat.
As it happens - like I said - I am not unhappy at the moment, just inert, apart from work. But I do have some serious work to do, and lockdown is oddly helping. So I will probably stay put and shtum and toil away until April 12, by which time my project will be largely done.
But by April 12 I will have immunity from my jab and the pubs will be open and presumably the weather will be better. THEN I will have some SERIOUS fun. Finally
Even the bloody weather has grown dull, monotonous and instantly forgettable.
I think this Saturday we're heading out to Hastings or Brighton. We have a really good friend in Brighton so we might avoid that until after the 12th for fear of breaking the serious rules of indoor socialising, she's been begging for people to come and visit her too because she's feeling a bit lonely.
https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1372298645433946118
In reality, of course, we are much further down the list. It will be interesting to watch reactions when the final tally is made.
https://twitter.com/TomClarke_ITV/status/1372264328951398404?s=20
Friend has birthday at end of month, might see if they want to meet if they've no other plans. Might invite them home, might stay outdoors. Depends on how they feel about the Plague, if they already have plans and, perhaps, the state of the weather. I've no particular compunctions about entertaining guests at this stage of the game.
I have no social obligations, no one calls me (people have stopped calling each other), there is nowhere to go and nothing to do, the world is shut; I no longer feel stressed, just bored and frozen, and thus I pour myself into the work. And it is good, what I do. I know it.
If only I could work or sleep all the time. It's the other hours that are problematic.
Anyway, time to watch Masterchef. Yay.
It would therefore make sense that problems with future deliveries from India will cause a slowdown in April.