IOM Covid removing restrictions

[The Old Git]

25 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

And there's no reason to suspect or expect that food supplies will be affected. The food supply chain is a different animal altogether.

And it doesn’t come in containers. 
 

it was a bit tongue-in-cheek. The shortage of some stock did make me think though. Wonder how other local businesses are faring. I’ve stayed well away from our family business since I retired so I’ve not asked there. 

[John Wright]

13 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Yes...a large chunk of visitors...but that can probably be renegotiated with the right mindset.

 

 

 

.

No, it’s based on a share of the whole. If the cake is smaller because of the UK take reducing then we get less. Possibly much less.

[John Wright]

30 minutes ago, Apple said:

Well said. Mr Wright. 

it is a pity this message has not really come across from our Government. 

It's a good job that young people like their phones so much as I think some of the things to come will include:

1. Enforced health care app on mobile phone with locator built in that an not be turned off. 

2 Travel health care insurance compulsory witha detailed health history available at borders

3. Passport id at all borders (favoured already by some Ministers I read)

4. Compulsory travel health screening either prior, at or post passing a border.

All this and whatever else will not be popular but it serves so many other purposes that at the moment politicians can only think to themselves and salivate about. We should be careful. Some of these issues are too important to leave to those too weak to argue against and / or unable to hold each other to account.

For this alone, shame on our current crop. 

 

 

That’s very very scary. 
 

1. voluntary

2. you’ve no idea how impossible it is to get Covid cover, especially if you are voluntary. I don’t want any border to have access to my health info, either.

3. absolutely not. What for? That’s just giving politicians control over movement. That’s USSR or DDR

4. no objections, subject to data safe guards, and only in pandemic emergencies.

[John Wright]

1 hour ago, Roxanne said:

I take my hat off to you John for making the life choices that you have. You’re a braver man than I, I must admit. It’s given me some courage reading this, that after all you’ve been through you’re still getting out there and doing it.  Really refreshing to read. All the very best to you. 

Thanks. I don’t think I’m brave. I’m being pragmatic.

We’ve all got choices. Mine is right for me. I hope it’s not wrong for anyone else.

I still haven’t screwed up the courage for the post cancer tattoo. Got the designs. Don’t think it’s a risk. I’m squeamish.

[doc.fixit]

I got a nice dolphin between my thumb and forefinger when I was 60 and just got my diagnosis, now, 14 years later I wouldn't be without it!

[piebaps]

Doc and trmpton both make valid points from different sides of the argument. This neatly demonstrates the practical difficulties we all face with the virus and is a fairly good indicator as to why different countries have different approaches to the problems.

We'll never all agree on the right way forward and without being supportive or critical of IOMG approach, I can safely say that I wouldn't want to have to make the calls they've been making.

[Blackajah]

I'm wondering whether the Govt (here and/or the UK) has a plan to deal with the anti-vax lunatics if (and it is IF, not WHEN) a vaccine is available.    Will there be / are there people who might be unable to have a vaccine because of pre-existing health conditions?   If so, how can these people be protected from those who refuse all vaccines (because it's Bill Gates/DNA alteration/5G etc?   

[Zarley]

19 minutes ago, Blackajah said:

I'm wondering whether the Govt (here and/or the UK) has a plan to deal with the anti-vax lunatics if (and it is IF, not WHEN) a vaccine is available.    Will there be / are there people who might be unable to have a vaccine because of pre-existing health conditions?   If so, how can these people be protected from those who refuse all vaccines (because it's Bill Gates/DNA alteration/5G etc?   

I've been wondering the same. I have a chronic health condition for which I see a consultant for in Liverpool twice a year**. In May 2019 he had me have a measles booster primarily due to the anti-vax movement and the subsequent rise in measles cases. We'd need a good uptake, percentage wise, to achieve herd immunity to protect those who *cannot*, as opposed to *will not*, be vaccinated.

 

**Haven't been since Nov 2019 due to corona. I've had to arrange blood tests here, including some specialist ones that have to go to a lab across, for which I'm still waiting on results. When the current batch is ready, I'll have to send the results across via email and then wait for a telephone consultation and specialist meds in the post.

Thankfully my condition is well controlled and should not put me at an increased risk of death should I get the virus. However, the prospect of long covid is a concern as the last thing I need is another chronic condition to manage.

[Barlow]

Howard Quayle has just said that immunity may only last a few months.

That puts his somewhat smug reply to Paul Moulton's question in its place, regarding Howard's coughing and spluttering at last week's Covid briefing.

[Flyingfemme]

1 minute ago, Barlow said:

Howard Quayle has just said that immunity may only last a few months.

In which case a vaccination will probably be of limited use and need to be done repeatedly.........I need to check the prices on drug company stocks.

[Barlow]

I think that immunity has been more than doubtful for a long time, so I can't believe that Howard Quayle thought last week he was somehow superman after having already 'had it'.

[Roger Mexico]

4 minutes ago, Flyingfemme said:

6 minutes ago, Barlow said:

Howard Quayle has just said that immunity may only last a few months.

In which case a vaccination will probably be of limited use and need to be done repeatedly...

No necessarily - vaccines often provide much better immunity than that derived from having the disease and indeed are designed to do that.  We do know that antibodies to Covid (which the idiot Quayle was bragging about having) tend to fade after a few months in a lot of cases, but it's uncertain whether there may still be some protection.  We haven't seen much in the way of documented reinfection yet - but in the end we don't know because the virus simply hasn't been around long enough.  

[Gladys]

5 hours ago, doc.fixit said:

cheers, it doesn't happen too often thank goodness and thanks for suggestions. I already exercise, work, good diet, vit D and C, fruit, nuts and sex but although living a good life the black descends occasionally and yes, I also worry a great deal about the future for our youth, my seven grandchildren, everyone in fact trying to deal with our brave new world, even while folk around the world try to kill their neighbours, their adopted countrymen and anyone else who disagrees with their religion or other beliefs

It's very hard sometimes to keep going when so many people don't give a fig for others well being.

OK rant over, a nice cup of tea and a hug for my loved ones and try and stay on an even keel until it becomes too much again. Thanks for listening.

Thank you for your heartfelt and brave posts.  Rest assured, I don't want to offer any sacrificial lambs in anything, covid included.  I don't think anyone here would.  My main concern is steering a "least cost, best outcome" course through this and John has eloquently explained his approach, which I thought was actually very helpful in the thought processes in the context of his particular risks. 

If I could offer my own experience of these measures,  I would refer to my Mum who was locked down in a nursing home.  She didn't understand why we couldn't visit, and I would go and wave and talk to her through her room window.  But, all she could do in response was to gesture me to go in.  It was heartbreaking, she didn't understand what was happening so was not in fear of covid, but she was isolated from her family.  That was an understandable measure at the time, but I think many in our nursing homes would fade away if they had to lock down again.  That cannot be a nice way to end your life, confused, feeling abandoned and unloved, when the reverse was true.

So, my advice or observation, is that we all have to weigh what we value in life and how far we want to accept risk that can diminish that value.  That will vary between people, but life is to be cherished and quality of life has to be the greatest treasure we all have.

So, keep up with the vitamins, exercise and sex and don't let anyone or anything  stop you from wringng the last drop out of life. 

[Debbie]

23 hours ago, Filippo said:

In the meantime, a disheartening conviction has been missed on this thread: the case of that 42 yo Douglas woman who, to escape her drunk partner, presented herself to a homeless shelter and, having spontaneously explained that she had returned from the UK a few days earlier, has been punished by our authorities with a four week jail term; for not hiding her unfortunate circumstances. I wonder how many of us, facing family conflicts or other unfavourable conditions of life, have ever, even for a moment, contemplated taking refuge into a homeless shelter, even as a theoretical possibility. I don’t know anyone personally.

Setting aside the issue of the callousness of similar convictions. Among the half of IOM population that is non-Manx born, many, if not most, will not understand insularity and will have serious problems adapting to it if it is brought to the extreme. Some came here because they saw a certain system; others did not make an entirely conscious decision, but their employers did for sure. Now it is introduced such a fundamental change as pulling up a drawbridge that many of us had not even noticed… It is absolutely enormous and it hasn’t yet sank into everyone’s mind how enormous it is.

 

In due course I am going to start and maintain a Wikipedia page about Covid repression in the Isle of Man. Not right now; so much hysteria and fearmongering are still preventing rational thinking. I am a Wikipedia editor and know how to do it properly.

There are similar pages about birching and homophobic obsession in the Isle of Man; these jailings are even more insular and backwards looking kind of politics and historical 
judgement will be severe.

The self-congratulatory and self-righteous attitude with which moronic police and judges have pursued obviously vulnerable citizens to pan out the delusional idea of a Covid-free island to their dementedly geriatric constituency...

There will be a day of reckoning.

[Hard Truth]

23 hours ago, AcousticallyChallenged said:

Well, given that we're not any way close to India or South Africa, in climate, demographics or attitudes, let's first look there. There's a lot of suggestion now that COVID's R-value is seasonal, and that actually, winter here is seeming to be a lovely catalyst for it, even with social distancing and masks. Especially with it being aerosolised. Ventilation is looking like one of the big factors in indoor spread. Indian metropolises tend to have a lot of ventilation because it gets chuffing hot, and poorer houses don't exactly get structural integrity as a priority.

Sweden on the other hand is an outlier in Europe, but remember that the Scandinavians have very different views on things like personal space. That probably makes a bigger difference than you'd imagine. Though, look at their cases and ask how that herd immunity is going now... Remember a month or two ago when 3k cases in the UK seemed high...

Whatever way you shake the stick, things are getting worse again, especially in the UK, with 1000 hospital admissions yesterday, higher than the fateful 23rd March. At current rates, total in hospital are doubling every two weeks, so they'll be hitting lockdown figures for total in hospital over there too.

 

23 hours ago, monasqueen said:

Sweden is not necessarily the country that the UK needs to follow. Their cases are rising again, fast. They've had a 70% increase in cases over the last week. They have also recently had a regional lockdown.

"It is “futile and immoral” to seek herd immunity as a protection from a pandemic, and the transmission of an infectious disease like Covid-19 cannot be fully halted without a vaccine, Sweden's chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has said."

Reading between the lines of this recent article, they are still trying to work out their best way forward.

 

46 minutes ago, Flyingfemme said:

In which case a vaccination will probably be of limited use and need to be done repeatedly.........I need to check the prices on drug company stocks.

 

41 minutes ago, Barlow said:

I think that immunity has been more than doubtful for a long time, so I can't believe that Howard Quayle thought last week he was somehow superman after having already 'had it'.

 

The point is that in places in which the virus has been allowed to run its course, because the government was unwilling or unable to stop its spread, the pandemic comes to a halt. It is self-limiting in some manner.

There are still many questions about the way in which this happens, but one cannot deny the evidence. New York is just another example (graph below as of today).