I wondered why I was SICK fO first time in 15 Years fO 14 days back in JAN. '20

get an antibody test and know fer surrrrrrr

Imbecibles in Westminster still don't know when to keep their gobs shut

Some UK ministers claim Brexit speeded the process up - but Gavin Williamson said it was down to having superior medical experts.

thalidomide

Quarantine rules to be relaxed for business travellers

That's the stupidest rule I've ever heard - and there are plenty of candidates around at the moment.

When should you enter quarantine? Now, this second - even before you're had time to infect the chauffeur on the way home.
How long does it take to know that the deal you've bumped elbows on will "create or preserve 50 jobs or lead to a £100,000 investment or order"?

How long is a piece of string?

The UK's medicines regulator in London, on the other hand, relies more heavily on the companies' own reports as does the European Medicines Agency, based in Amsterdam.

Hmm...
...Boeing & FAA not a clear enough warning for people then.
Fauci apologises for "Rushed vaccine" remarks

The last reporting period was a recording breaking one on so many levels as the world recorded a record breaking 679,194 case day (less Sweden's case numbers as yet as well as both of Tunisia's) and a record breaking daily death count of over 12,680 which takes those total to over 65.5 million cases along with over 1,511,000 deaths. :-(

Again the U.S. contributed a large portion to both counts by racking up a record daily infection count of over 218,500 along side record death count of over 2,900 taking both totals to over 14.5 million and over 282,800. :-O

Mind you the U.K. became the 5th country to pass 60,000 deaths (and currently 7th by case numbers), but never fear as Italy is closing in very fast on them in both categories. Russia also set a new daily case P.B., but just missed out on breaking their daily death P.B. that they set in the previous period.

Anyhow back to the case race update. I couldn't confirm this yesterday, but I can now, and that's that Uganda slipped past the Ivory Coast to claim 99th spot, Denmark took 86th from Libya while Kenya passed Algeria to take over 73rd, Palestine knocked Bosnia/Herzegovina out of 69th as Moldova displaced Ethiopia from 61st, Azerbaijan shoved Lebanon out of 56th place and Croatia blasted past Armenia for 53rd.

Georgia leapt over both Bolivia and the Dominican Republic to land in 46th, Hungary slipped past Jordan to claim 38th place while the Netherlands took 23rd from Czechia, Indonesia whacked Chile out of 21st and South Africa became the 16th country to pass 800,000 cases as Iran became the 14th country to pass 1 million.

“This is something that needs to be examined.”

Vaccine: Can it still be transmitted?
The issue I find worrying with the Pfizer vaccine is its low temperature storage. It is going to be a logistical nightmare.
Also, what guarantee has anyone being given it have that the vaccine has been stored correctly before its application?
I can hear the screams already!
One has to trust the professionals, scientists & medical staff. Hmm...
...all human not robots...
...hence
737 Max
Grenfell Tower
Herald of Free Enterprise...
...plenty more examples out there.
Also, why the mad scrambe to get Pfizer's vaccine, what about the Oxford one which can be safely stored at a higher temp?

I actually think that the UK is enough of a first-world country (still! just!) that we ought to be able to cope with the Pfizer vaccine.

The Oxford vaccine is probably more desperately needed in Africa and South Asia, where the cold storage and transport requirements would be even more problematic than in our cold little country. (he says, looking out at the snow lying on the hills across the valley)

Reports coming out that the CEO of China's Sinovac paid bribes for other vaccines.
Has he done it again has to be the question.

Scotland should be okay with all that "Thundersnow". :-)
I don't believe that refrigerated vehicles can go that low, hence the need for dry ice.
So much for being carbon neutral then.
Also, as WK pointed out:

There are some advantages with the Oxford vacine compared to the Pfizer vacine.
Cost, Oxford £2.23/dose, Pfizer £29.47/2 jabs
Storage Oxford 35°F - 46°F (2°C - 8°C), Pfizer 109°F (-78°C)

As for Pfizer's, is that £29.47 per jab or inclusive?

I actually think that the UK is enough of a first-world country (still! just!) that we ought to be able to cope with the Pfizer vaccine.

The Oxford vaccine is probably more desperately needed in Africa and South Asia, where the cold storage and transport requirements would be even more problematic than in our cold little country. (he says, looking out at the snow lying on the hills across the valley)

I would think so too Richard, but I'd add South America your Oxford list.

Down here we'll be using both as the Pfizer vaccine will have no problems in our east and south east coastal populated strip (Cairns to Adelaide) along with the Perth and Darwin regions as well as a few major country centres while the Oxford vaccine will be used for our more remote county areas (with the distances and heat being involved) as it'll be much easier and more suitable to transport and store for those places.

Sri Lanka's and Finland's personal race to see who knocks Australia out of 95th place (by cases) looks to be tipping into Sri Lanka's favour, but Australia should be safe for another 3 days, as the gap continues to grow between Australia and South Korea (94th), currently 27,949 to 36,332. Lithuania knocked Nigeria out of 83rd spot while Ireland who made it to 66th place before their brakes were applied are now down to 81st with both Malaysia and Lithuania closing in fast on them. Now Denmark (who I made a typo with in my last post that should've read 76th instead of 86th) put in a mighty leap over Paraguay, Algeria and China to land in 73rd while Algeria passed China to take up 74th.

Tunisia (who finally put some numbers in) became the 67th country to pass 100,000 infections as Slovakia leapt over Greece and Ethiopia to land in 61st while Greece also passed Ethiopia to move into 62nd. Guatemala slipped past Oman into 58th while Armenia just cleared Qatar to take 53rd, Costa Rica passed Belarus to regain 50th, but both and Kuwait (and possibly Bolivia) are now well within Croatia's range. Serbia finally caught up with and passed Ecuador to not only claim 40th place, but also became the 40th country to pass 200,000 cases, Switzerland finally bridged the gap to Israel and blew them out of 32nd.

Canada became the 29th country to pass 400,000 cases while Romania became the 25th to pass 500,000. Indonesia has now whacked Iraq out of 20th place. Meanwhile the U.S. has again set another new daily case P.B. of over 235,200 taking their infection total past 14.7 million as the world set a new record daily case count of well over 684,000 and along with over 12,100 deaths takes those totals past 66.2 million and 1,523,500. :-O

Anyhow more passing movements are certain to come. :-(

The last reporting period saw the world's case total pass 67.3 million while deaths passed 1,541,300. :-(

Sri Lanka passed Finland to moved into 96th place by cases while Ireland passed Uzbekistan, but Lithuania came along and leapt over both of them as well as Malaysia to land in 80th, Algeria took 73rd from Bahrain as Denmark jumped over both Bahrain and Kenya to take over 71st spot, Slovakia removed Moldova from 61st and Lebanon took 56th place from Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan put in a mighty leap to pass Qatar, Armenia, Costa Rica, Kuwait and Bolivia to land in 50th place as Belarus jumped over Costa Rica, Kuwait and Bolivia to take up 49th while Croatia sprouted wings to pass Costa Rica, Kuwait, Bolivia, Belarus and the Dominican Republic to land in 47th.

Japan and Bulgaria were passed by Georgia who takes up 44th spot as Panama ejected the U.A.E. from 42nd while Hungary took 37th from Nepal. Turkey became the 18th country to pass 800,000 infections and leaping over both the Ukraine and South Africa to take over 16th place while Italy removed the U.K. from 6th place.

Meanwhile the U.S. has now passed 15.1 million infections and 288,900 deaths as they just keep on barrelling along at an alarming pace (I wonder how the political breakdown of those numbers works out). :-O

Anyhow the current reporting period will have most of the weekend's missing numbers in it which could throw a few more interesting moves into the mix, but that'll have to wait for tomorrow's update to reveal all.

The last reporting period saw the world's case total pass 67.3 million while deaths passed 1,541,300. :-( ...

Over here in the UK...

We've seen a beautiful steady reduction in daily new cases during our 4-week 'light' 'lockdown'. The main successful features seem to be to curtail travel and the hospitality industry. Schools remained open and seem not to have had too adverse an effect. Is that because schools are better controlled and more intelligent and more diligent about protecting against infection compared to pubs, bars and restaurants?

However...

The UK case numbers appear to be on the rise yet again, and were already on the rise in anticipation of the end of lockdown...

This does not bode well for sharing celebrations at Christmas and the New Year...


Are there any examples for what happened to infection numbers for the end of year celebrations from other countries?... What can we expect?!


Stay safe folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Are there any examples for what happened to infection numbers for the end of year celebrations from other countries?... What can we expect?!

For examples there I'd point out the huge rise in cases from Canada's and the U.S.'s Thanksgiving holidays Martin which don't bode well for the festive season in many countries.

Also it took 3 months of near total lockdown for our state of Victoria to regain control over the virus which more than tripled our numbers. Victoria has now gone 39 days without reporting a case and 8 days without a death, but at least they now have their newly revamped overseas quarantine facilities reopened so that should show a drop in N.S.W.'s overseas quarantine numbers (though with all the Aussies still trying to get back home for Xmas could throw a spanner into the works yet).

Cheers.

Now that most of the weekend's numbers are in the world's case total has passed 67.9 million while deaths have passed 1,549,800. :-(

The latest movements in the case race saw Latvia remove Ivory Coast from 100th place, Sri Lanka knocked Australia from 95th while Malaysia slipped past Uzbekistan into 82nd, Lithuania zipped past Kyrgyzstan to claim 79th as Libya took 76th from China, Paraguay claimed 73rd from Kenya and Myanmar became the 68th country to enter the 100K+ club. Moldova reclaimed 61st back from Slovakia (we may have a fight on here), Azerbaijan leapt over Belarus and the Dominican Republic to land in 48th as Switzerland blew Israel out of 32nd, Canada blasted Pakistan out of 28th while the Netherlands trampled over Chile to claim 22nd and that's it until tomorrow's update.

Londoners must stick to rules to avoid tier 3
So say Hancock & Khan.
Looking at the photo of Regents Street in that report, thought of a great meme...
...superimpose this over the photo with the comment...
"I'm coming for you"

All's well that ends well and few more William Shakespeare puns.

The world during the last reporting period passed 68.5 million infections and 1,562,100 deaths. :-(

Anyhow in the case race Finland took 96th place from Australia, but they along with Sri Lanka have a long way to go before they catch up with South Korea, Malaysia removed Ireland from 81st while Slovenia slapped China out of 77th as Paraguay edged past Algeria into 72nd and Palestine became the 69th country to pass 100,000 cases. Tunisia slipped past Venezuela into 66th as Slovakia again passed Moldova in their little race to reclaim 61st while Belarus took 49th from the Dominican Republic and the Netherlands blasted Iraq out of 21st.

Meanwhile the U.S. put in another 200K+ day along with over 2900 deaths taking their totals past 15,591,700 and 293,300 continuing their relentless charge leading up to Xmas, but what are their numbers going to be like after the festive season? :-O

BBC - Covid-19 vaccine: Allergy warning over new jab

People with a history of significant allergic reactions should not have the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid jab, regulators say.

It came after two NHS workers had allergic reactions on Tuesday.

The advice applies to those who have had reactions to medicines, food or vaccines, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said.

The two people had a reaction shortly after having the new jab, had treatment and are both fine now.

They are understood to have had an anaphylactoid reaction, which tends to involve a skin rash, breathlessness and sometimes a drop in blood pressure. This is not the same as anaphylaxis which can be fatal.

Both NHS workers have a history of serious allergies and carry adrenaline pens around with them.