No vaccine=no crowds?

[GrayBlade]

One thing I’ve learned over the past few months is that nobody has any idea how this is going pan out from be they the boffins, the general media, social media users or indeed users of this forum. Right now it’s all about opinions and speculation... a bit like debating United and the players we sign.

 

[Freethinker]

I'd go as far as to say the return of football crowds will be nothing to do with the availability of a vaccine. It will be to do with lifting the restrictions on social distancing. And that will be to do with having an infection rate below 1 and having testing and tracing capabilities in place.

The good news is that the infection rate is currently below 1 and we are increasing testing and tracing capabilities. But I honestly can't see big events like football being open to the public before the end of this year. I hope I'm wrong.

Personally I'd have no problem if they lifted the social distancing restrictions now. I'd go to a match tomorrow and be happy to be in the crowd alongside 30,000 others. We actually need more people to catch it - that's the ironic twist to all this. It's the only way the population will build up sufficient immunity to stop it spreading further. i.e. "herd immunity". We just don't want those people to be the high risk groups with underlying health conditions. So I think those will need to remain protected until a vaccine is found.

I'm not in favour of deciding who these people are by imposing a blanket age restriction, e.g. anyone over 70 has to stay socially distanced. That would be discriminatory as some over 70's are as fit as others under 70. In this interim period without a vaccine, my preference would be to make sure everyone has the correct advice and then allow people to make their own decisions on what level of risk they are prepared to take. And I think at some point this has to come - and that point is probably not too far away. Otherwise we will create even bigger problems, socially and economically that will impact more negatively on health than this coronavirus.

Thats a very reasoned and sensible post in fact best post on thread so far

 

[Tezza1889]

Send a large photo of yourself to be stuck on your seat , watch at home shouting into a microphone played into a speaker on same seat away you go .

The bloke behind me will have his cut out shouting Sitdaaaahhhhnnnnn

For the whole 90 mins and then extra time n pens..

 

[Freethinker]

My problem with vaccine is government (I use that term loosely) said if successful there would be 30,000,000 available... what about the other 35,000,000 people... ?? anyway ... believe it when I see it. Probably be that many defying distancing soon wont be any point not opening venues.

Well I don't want one anyways and there's thousands like me

 

[Northyorksblade]

People are already taking chances and breaking the rules, I'm sat working from home and the neighbours (both in their 70s and smoke), are currently being visited by their daughter. The move back to normality has already started and it's only going to continue to edge closer and closer over time.

But they are allowed to have one family visit now aren't they?

 

[YouFUMS]

What percentage of the population has the flu vaccine? Only those 'at risk' are called in each year for it. If those people didn't have a vaccination, I wonder if 35k flu deaths would occur over a couple of months? Just pondering...
I have never had a flu vaccine, and as far as I know I have never had the flu.

 

[Northyorksblade]

I'm quite prepared to abide by the rules in the long short term, but not forever. What's the point? I'll be alive but I won't be living.

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

Where's the vaccine for the common cold and flu?

All bedwetting in my own personal opinion. This virus may be here forever.

Some nurse stuck a needle in me in December mi arm ached for a couple of days afterwards,basterd Flu jab.

 

[Tarqs]

My problem with vaccine is government (I use that term loosely) said if successful there would be 30,000,000 available... what about the other 35,000,000 people... ?? anyway ... believe it when I see it. Probably be that many defying distancing soon wont be any point not opening venues.

The other 35m belong to the freedom of movement ..movement, who don't wish to be injected by Fetusees.

 

[YES Blade]

But they are allowed to have one family visit now aren't they?

But they aren't allowed to go into each others houses.

 

[Northyorksblade]

But they aren't allowed to go into each others houses.

Couldnt they be sitting in the garden?

 

[YES Blade]

I don’t believe that is allowed either, but at risk of sounding like a nosey neighbour, I saw them going out in the same car so they certainly ain’t social distancing!

 

[west_yorks_blade]

Send a large photo of yourself to be stuck on your seat , watch at home shouting into a microphone played into a speaker on same seat away you go .

Would a photo count in the attendance figures?

 

[Harry's Game]

Some scientists speculating the virus may have mutated to a less severe form, this is why some people who have no symptoms have been found to be positive when tested and also the reason the feared second spike hasn’t stuck places like Germany and Spain yet. Let’s hope this is correct.

 

[metalblade]

Herd immunity will kick in eventualy.

 

[ATL Recs]

I'd go as far as to say the return of football crowds will be nothing to do with the availability of a vaccine. It will be to do with lifting the restrictions on social distancing. And that will be to do with having an infection rate below 1 and having testing and tracing capabilities in place.

The good news is that the infection rate is currently below 1 and we are increasing testing and tracing capabilities. But I honestly can't see big events like football being open to the public before the end of this year. I hope I'm wrong.

Personally I'd have no problem if they lifted the social distancing restrictions now. I'd go to a match tomorrow and be happy to be in the crowd alongside 30,000 others. We actually need more people to catch it - that's the ironic twist to all this. It's the only way the population will build up sufficient immunity to stop it spreading further. i.e. "herd immunity". We just don't want those people to be the high risk groups with underlying health conditions. So I think those will need to remain protected until a vaccine is found.

I'm not in favour of deciding who these people are by imposing a blanket age restriction, e.g. anyone over 70 has to stay socially distanced. That would be discriminatory as some over 70's are as fit as others under 70. In this interim period without a vaccine, my preference would be to make sure everyone has the correct advice and then allow people to make their own decisions on what level of risk they are prepared to take. And I think at some point this has to come - and that point is probably not too far away. Otherwise we will create even bigger problems, socially and economically that will impact more negatively on health than this coronavirus.

A agree but there’s mixed evidence that we are building immunity indeed one of the concerns is that it’s a temporary immunity due to people being infected more than once in a short space of time

 

[jt64]

My problem with vaccine is government (I use that term loosely) said if successful there would be 30,000,000 available... what about the other 35,000,000 people... ??

If there's 30 million available then we can sell 20-25 million of them for cash money after everyone that could use a vaccine has had one

 

[JohnDenver]

My problem with vaccine is government (I use that term loosely) said if successful there would be 30,000,000 available... what about the other 35,000,000 people... ?? anyway ... believe it when I see it. Probably be that many defying distancing soon wont be any point not opening venues.

30,000,000 inoculated people, plus those with natural immunity, plus those with acquired immunity...

I‘d say that’s almost certainly a safe enough environment to resume mass gatherings.

 

[BushBlade]

Some nurse stuck a needle in me in December mi arm ached for a couple of days afterwards,basterd Flu jab.

Had one a couple of years ago. Went to the doctor to book it in and they asked me if I wanted it there and then. So I did. I didn’t realise that it can cause flu symptoms. It came on within a couple of hours, felt pretty shit but had to go to work the next day. Was absolutely bollocksed. Then it went away. It was like mini-flu.

 

[Cerberus Blade]

A agree but there’s mixed evidence that we are building immunity indeed one of the concerns is that it’s a temporary immunity due to people being infected more than once in a short space of time

Yes true. There's still a question mark over this whole thing about "immunity". It's probably too early to tell, but what we can do is look what we know about building immunity to other viruses, especially ones from the same family as COVID-19, i.e. other "coronaviruses", like SARS and MERS. and we see evidence in those cases that immunity can be developed. That doesn't mean for certain that we will develop immunity to COVID-19, but put it this way, it would be extremely unusual if not.

The immunity comes from developing protective antibodies to the virus and we do that either by immunising people with a small inactive amount of the virus (i.e. a vaccine) or by contracting the infection naturally. We don't have a vaccine currently, so if we are going to develop immunity throughout the population there's only one way that's going to happen at the moment and that's through having sufficient numbers of the population contracting the infection. And this was always the plan from the outset - but it was spreading too fast, at a rate that threatened to overwhelm our ability to cope with it, so we've slowed it down through lock down and social distancing measures. The next phase is to let the handbrake off, slowly, and allow it to spread a bit more, but not to those who are at serious risk from it.

Re-infection is an interesting topic. There have been some reports of people having it more than once - however, those reports are not reliable. And the reason why they are not reliable is because no serotyping was done in these patients, so we don't know whether they contracted a new strain of the virus, or whether they never eliminated the first strain that they had. Studies of other coronavirus show that patients had immunity for over a year. Again, we don't know, but we might expect to see something similar with this COVID-19.

There's a lot of "guesswork" going on at the moment and the truth is, we just don't have all the information to know for certain about a lot of things to do with this. Most of the "data" we do have so far is based on a population of patients who were hospitalised for serious infection with COVID-19. We can look at their immunity levels, but that doesn't tell us much about the ability to develop immunity levels in the general population, especially in healthy people, who are the majority.

We have to remember that the lock down was introduced in order to slow down transmission of the virus. In the absence of a vaccine and mass immunisation programme, it is the only tool we have to stop the virus spreading so rapidly that it exhausts our ability to deal with it, i.e. the NHS services. We didn't slow it down because it was going to rip through society and kill millions of us off. The vast majority of us are at little or no risk from this virus. We slowed it down so we can better protect those who are at risk and be able to manage to deliver other important, life-saving, healthcare services. Sometimes I think this point gets overlooked - as we go around with useless face-masks on and give each other a wide berth in the open outdoors - and have our kids losing out on an education - for no good scientific reason.

 

[Cerberus Blade]

Had one a couple of years ago. Went to the doctor to book it in and they asked me if I wanted it there and then. So I did. I didn’t realise that it can cause flu symptoms. It came on within a couple of hours, felt pretty shit but had to go to work the next day. Was absolutely bollocksed. Then it went away. It was like mini-flu.

I worked for one of the major vaccine companies and they used to offer all staff the flu jab every year. And you have to have it every year of course because the strains of the virus are changing each year. I'd say the majority of folks had little or no ill effects from it. Maybe a bit of arm ache for 24 hours afterwards, but no different to what you'd have from having your holiday jabs. Some did feel a bit "under the weather" for a couple of days, with what you accurately describe as "mini-flu".

The flu vaccines have been around for literally decades now, so I don't know where this idea came from that there aren't any? I suspect some people are getting a bit confused between vaccines and "cures". There are no cures for any virus on earth. But there are vaccines and other medications that reduce the severity and spread of viral infections and treat the symptoms.

When we had the flu epidemic in 2009 the UK government stockpiled reserves of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) for example. I thought "Tamiflu" was a household name thesedays, like "Viagra?" I know we had a box of it prescribed for my youngest son because he had quite bad asthma back then. Tamiflu, that is...not Viagra!

 

[nopigfansintown]

The truth is nobody knows. We don't know if a vaccine can be developed; whether you can actually have immunity to Covid19; how many times one person can have the virus; how many strains of the virus there are; if, and how, the virus can mutate; how the virus reacts to hot and cold weather. My own view, is that our government were so Ill prepared and reactive in terms of lockdown, PPE, NHS capacity, messaging etc that we may as well have gone full on herd immunity. We've essentially had an environment that actively spread the virus, and the disintegration of society, whilst only bolting the door long after the horse had bolted in terms of lockdown. Even then the lockdown wasn't and still isn't a proper lockdown. I started self isolating before the second to last home game as a knew a shit storm was coming. I'm aware that it'll probably kill me if I get it due to health issues.

 

[S64 Blade]

Where's the vaccine for the common cold and flu?

All bedwetting in my own personal opinion. This virus may be here forever.

There is a vaccine for the flu.

 

[Nonamedhorse]

I really don't get people hanging everything on a vaccine, the seasonal flu has a vaccine and kills between 35 and 45k each year in a similar time frame, usually between late oct and mid Jan, a vaccine only really accelerate's herd immunity, the whole idea of a vaccine completely getting rid of covid (remember that a vaccine is a live shot of the virus, is frankly ludicrous. Common sense and hygiene are a better option. Just my 2cents.

Apart from the fact that 35 to 45k die each year and a ‘live shot’ of the virus in vaccines is given are both incorrect, your post is more or less factually correct.

 

[Sheffsteel]

The good news is that the infection rate is currently below 1 and we are increasing testing and tracing capabilities. But I honestly can't see big events like football being open to the public before the end of this year. I hope I'm wrong.

Personally I'd have no problem if they lifted the social distancing restrictions now. I'd go to a match tomorrow and be happy to be in the crowd alongside 30,000 others. We actually need more people to catch it - that's the ironic twist to all this. It's the only way the population will build up sufficient immunity to stop it spreading further. i.e. "herd immunity". We just don't want those people to be the high risk groups with underlying health conditions. So I think those will need to remain protected until a vaccine is found.

Agree with your post....I’d also have no issues returning to a 30,000 stadium now.

The info coming from the government makes no sense. Just follow the logic below.

Statement 1:
Corona virus is incredibly infectious....it can live on surfaces and travel through the air. So everyone must wash their hands for 20 seconds
and wear gloves and face masks for protection. Footballers aren’t even allowed to shake hands. BOTTOM LINE; it’s very easy to catch.

Statement 2:
Reports say it arrived in the UK as early as December....I personally had corona virus symptoms in late Jan.

Conclusion if we treat the above as facts is that half the population must have caught the virus at some time recently.
So if 35 million have had the virus....the fact that only 35,000 have died is incredibly low.
Also 95% of the deceased were over 70 or already had health problems.
Social media has a lot to answer for.....everything is built up into an hysteria....so the masses become brainwashed....it’s concerning.

 

[Cerberus Blade]

Agree with your post....I’d also have no issues returning to a 30,000 stadium now.

The info coming from the government makes no sense. Just follow the logic below.

Statement 1:
Corona virus is incredibly infectious....it can live on surfaces and travel through the air. So everyone must wash their hands for 20 seconds
and wear gloves and face masks for protection. Footballers aren’t even allowed to shake hands. BOTTOM LINE; it’s very easy to catch.

Statement 2:
Reports say it arrived in the UK as early as December....I personally had corona virus symptoms in late Jan.

Conclusion if we treat the above as facts is that half the population must have caught the virus at some time recently.
So if 35 million have had the virus....the fact that only 35,000 have died is incredibly low.
Also 95% of the deceased were over 70 or already had health problems.
Social media has a lot to answer for.....everything is built up into an hysteria....so the masses become brainwashed....it’s concerning.

You're not the only one who thinks they may have had this earlier. I had some of the symptoms, not all I admit, but some of them back in Jan.

To be fair, very little was known about the transmission of the virus at the beginning, but we do know now that it's extremely unlikely to catch it by touching something that someone with it has touched. The main risk is airborne transmission, being within the vicinity of someone who's got it if they cough or sneeze in your direction and you absorb the infected water droplets. In that respect, if someone is wearing some kind of face-covering then it would reduce the chances of them spreading it if they coughed or sneezed, but it's doubtful how much protection covering your face with some improvised face mask offers. Unless you're wearing a hospital grade face mask and it is fitted correctly, then it's probably not offering much protection at all - although I can see why people may feel safer if they and others wear one.

At the garden centre the other day, most of the staff were wearing face masks. One bloke has his just over his mouth, leaving his nose uncovered. Not terribly effective that! I saw a couple coming out of the garden centre wearing masks and heading back to their car. As they got to the car they just took the masks off and put them in their pockets. No doubt they'll put them on again when they go to the next shop. If those masks have got contaminated with infected water droplets then they are just going to give themselves another helping when they put the masks on again. In the NHS the masks are disposed of after contact with patients - they can't just be used time and time again.

Same with gloves. In fact it's more likely that members of the general public going around with gloves on are spreading the virus than those without them. There's been some articles on this recently.

Anyhow - we are where we are I suppose. What concerns me is that the more it goes on, the more it becomes the norm. And whilst some things may never be quite what they were before, we have to try and start restoring some sense of "normality" if we don't want to be prisoners to a threat that isn't a significant threat to the majority of people.

 

[Ball_Sup (Phil)]

Speaking as a Senior Citizen. When the next Virus Pandemic comes along. And that one particularly attacks 20 to 30 year olds. Any Blades in that age group have my Absolute Guarantee of SOLIDARITY. I hereby swear not to be dismissive and post - it's all a panic, it's only killing 25 year olds.
Similarly, when Diabetes happens to be beneficial in surviving the next Virus Pandemic, you will not hear a word from me pointing a finger at all the Divs WITHOUT that pre-existing condition.
Solidarity looks like that. You have my word......

 

[Deadly_D'Jaffo]

When we had the flu epidemic in 2009 the UK government stockpiled reserves of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) for example. I thought "Tamiflu" was a household name thesedays, like "Viagra?" I know we had a box of it prescribed for my youngest son because he had quite bad asthma back then. Tamiflu, that is...not Viagra!

Tamiflu. Just reading the name makes my body tense and stomach churn.

In 2009 I contracted Avian Flu. If Corona is anything half like that, it's a bastard. Even in my mid 20's I was bed ridden for 3 days with all the flu like symptoms, with an added bonus of constant vomiting, but multiply the symptoms by 5. You couldn't sleep, couldn't eat and if you drank anything more then a shot glass of water it came straight back.

Tamiflu made the symptoms even more volatile. It felt like some cruel joke or I was part of some scientific experiment. One of worst few days of my life (up until 2020 anyway).

If you ever bump into any old colleagues/associates who peddled Tamiflu Cerberus Blade please, for me, give them a kick between the legs

 

[metalblade]

The amount of people I know who have had virus like symptoms around December/ January says to me this Covid19 has been around a lot longer than the governments around the world are letting on. I have been having the flu jab for 10 years now and have only once had a reaction to it where I felt shit for a few days and to be fair since I started having the annual jab the worst I get is a bad cold. This year was different around xmas time I did really start to feel like shit and it was scary as it just felt like my throat was closing up and I couldn't get any air in, aches all over and a real feeling of extreme fatigue and lethargy. At night I was waking up with a start heart racing gasping for breath, so much so I was straight off to the Doc who shipped me of to hossie to be tested for heart problems and sleep apnia which confirmed I was coming out of normal sleep 25 times a night. this went on for a good 3 weeks where I was struggling for air and just didn't want to do anything after that the symptoms went, does sleep apnia come and go or was it something else? My follow up test where they give you a pump to give you air at a slightly higher pressure over night (a sort of mini ventilator) was cancelled as they needed these machines for people who had contracted Covid19 as a way of keeping the less severe cases out of intensive care. Makes me wonder.

 

[diode_blade]

How is it possible to have crowds at football, rugby racing or whatever if a vaccine isn't found? Social distancing can only go so far. Could this spread into years rarther than months and if so what will become of the beautiful game?

I'm with you on this, they havn't found a cure yet for the deludomol virus at S6....

Oh wait we did


To go back to jan this year, I had returned home from my sisters, now I have not had a cold in 10 years, either head or chest cold, head cold then moves down to your chest, I have been around people in those ten years who have had heavy colds and even flu, stood with them in pubs and at work etc, never caught anything.
I have sometimes had a slight head sniffle which lasted only for a day or two but that is it. Think plenty of lager helped as well, flushed mi blood system.

Back to jan, i got back home just after new year, was still on holiday from work, and wham, was hit, high temp, slight difficulty breathing, back,legs and arms aching like hell, headache and sweating like mad, only lasted though again for about 3 days, againg plenty of peroni and Morretti and I mean plenty seemed to flush it out of my system.