MedEwok wrote:
here has been a huge increase just last week, as GPs started to vaccinate as well.
The increase has been due to more vaccine deliveries. The ratio administered doses / delivered doses has not changed last week – as expected as physician capacity has not been any limitation so far.
Peter wrote:
Why has Germany managed to have so far fewer deaths (per million) than say the UK?
Compared to all other countries I personally visited (for business) in these days or where I have really good friends, the lockdown protocols in Germany have been much stricter and esp. population compliance with these measures has been much higher – esp. in relation to high risk groups. E.g. elderly care homes have literally been closed for outside visitors for months in Germany – and closed meant closed.
I’m not judging if it is the right approach to ban visits from family members, spouses, etc. completely for months for 90 yr old alzheimer patients. But it undoubtedly is an effective approach to keep them alive.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The question is why it was allowed to process that far. And there I do hope that in the future there will be tribunals to find out who is responsible and act on them accordingly.
The answer is simple: Because we live in democracies and in most countries people did not accept to stay insight, restrict travel to the bare necessity, etc.
You can easily see the problem in Mallorca just these days. But do you really want to put all people who did spend a vacation in Mallorca over easter in front of a Tribunal and detain them into camps thereafter? Don’t think that works in democracies like ours.
As natural as your desire to identify “someone who is guilty” might sound: Truth is, that it is the vast majority of the population who did not fight enough against the pandemic in early stages – and therefore it’s the vast majority of the population to blame!
Malibuflyer wrote:
The increase has been due to more vaccine deliveries. The ratio administered doses / delivered doses has not changed last week – as expected as physician capacity has not been any limitation so far.
Yes I was imprecise. GP surgeries were able to boost the numbers of vaccinations significantly, thanks to more vaccine deliveries at the same time.
As you argued before (and I wouldn’t disagree), the same increase in vaccinations could have been done at the vaccination centres alone.
Either way, we’re picking up speed, which is a good thing.
Malibuflyer wrote:
The answer is simple: Because we live in democracies and in most countries people did not accept to stay insight, restrict travel to the bare necessity, etc.
Actually I thought initially (March-May 2020) the lockdowns, when they finally were implemented, were observed just fine by most. Think of the figures we had then. After the first wave we were almost at a Zero Covid scenario and really not that far away. I found that remarkable, particularly as there were many attempts to undermine that general compliance by false statements.
The trouble started when the infection rate was very low in summer and people got careless, politicians caved in to open up to early before the job was done.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Truth is, that it is the vast majority of the population who did not fight enough against the pandemic in early stages – and therefore it’s the vast majority of the population to blame!
I am primarily thinking of those who
- were responsible for the fact that we did not have enough masks in February 2020 and following, despite clear legal obligations to store a certain amount, which were not met, of the legally necessary storage, about 40% only was available. This lead to
- those who lied about the effectivity of masks early on to cover their arses for the above failures.
- those who obstructed, delayed and sabotaged lockdowns, (which at least in Switzerland at the time (February/March 2020) were DEMANDED by the population!) and closure of borders, air routes (China, Italy) e.t.c.
- those who in full knowledge of what was going on obstructed measures and helped spread the plague such as those responsible for the Ischgl spread e.t.c.
In more recent context, it should be investigated how the procurement process of vaccines worked or didn’t and why, with similar ressources, some areas were much faster and better equipped to logistically handle the mass vaccinations than others.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Because we live in democracies and in most countries people did not accept to stay insight, restrict travel to the bare necessity, etc.
Originally, when this all started, people actually were shouting for the executive to lock down, to stop the influx of sick people from hot spots e.t.c. The trust was systematically destroyed by the above lies, distortions, calm down attempts to “save” the economy, which, as a consequence has suffered much more than anyone could have imagined. The amount of corruption in this case, mostly morale corruption I guess, was and is totally staggering.
If one looks at Taiwan or other als democratic places like Australia/NZ who reckognized Covid as the danger it was, they massively and quickly shut down, kept a lid on it and were very successful in containing the plague and were back to normal much faster than we can ever be now.
If you look back at Summer 2020, figures were extremely low. It would have taken a few weeks or maybe until September or so in the status quo we had prior to the big opening in summer and we would have been done. Instead, thanks to the opening up of everything in June, the 2nd wave and all that followed was a consequence.
At the very least, a massive “lessons learnt” concept has to be implemented to improve readiness across the board for similar future events. That is much more important than taking those who caused this one here to the cleaners.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Just because people want to go drink in the pub?
That’s not “just”. Humans are social animals. The restrictions are slowly killing our souls. (Figuratively speaking.)
Airborne_Again wrote:
That’s not “just”. Humans are social animals. The restrictions are slowly killing our souls. (Figuratively speaking.)
Actually, not only figuratively speaking. Just after writing the above, I saw this link to the recent research article Social isolation during COVID-19 lockdown impairs cognitive function.
Ignore the pessimism, the Guardian writes on how vaccines will eventually beat the pandemic, citing several studies to support the author’s argument (unfortunately not the norm in the Guardian, or anywhere in the press for that matter).
Mooney_Driver wrote:
were responsible for the fact that we did not have enough masks in February 2020 and following,
So those parts of the population that did not order masks early enough to indicate amazon (and the Chinese suppliers) that they want some. I never ran out of masks…
Mooney_Driver wrote:
- those who lied about the effectivity of masks early on to cover their arses for the above failures.
So about half of the Facebook users….Mooney_Driver wrote:
- those who obstructed, delayed and sabotaged lockdowns
So those people who had their coffee on Barfüsserplatz or at Münsterhof although they knew that we are in a pandemic…
Overall you seem to have a mental model of a population being underaged children and the government is their parents being responsible for telling them what to do. And as you blame the parents if a 5 year old does something wrong you blame the government for not forcing the population to do the right things.
This is not my model of a nation!
Malibuflyer wrote:
So those parts of the population that did not order masks early enough to indicate amazon (and the Chinese suppliers) that they want some. I never ran out of masks…
No. I am in this context not talking about normal citizens out there but about government officials and official voices as well as other decision makers who formulated the covid policy in Switzerland.
Maybe this is a Swiss thing. There is a federal law that a certain amount of masks (and other supplies) have to be in storage in the cantons as well as federally in order to cover situations such as these. Masks are only one part of the compulsory storage here.
It turned out, that these compulsory storage laws were violated in a large extent, to the point where only about 30% of the legal reserves were available. Consequently, when the pandemic hit, it was impossible to provide sufficient masks for even the health sector when the market dried up. I want the people who let this happen be taken into responsibility.
The consequence about this was that it was decided on ministry level or at the very last at health ministry level to LIE about the effectivity of masks in order to prevent the population to panic as there were no masks available. Those people I wish taken to responsibility as well, as not only did it cause a lot of additional unnecessary infections but it undermined the trust of the population into the official voices massively and to this day.
(And as a comparison: In Bulgaria, one of the poorest countries in Europe, handled this differently: They came upfront and TOLD the population, we need masks, we don’t have them but we are doing our damnest to get them, until then, cover your faces in public with whatever you can think of (including giving ideas and instructions to make makshift masks out of different materials. They also locked down fast. Consequently, their initial 1st wave was much less than elsewhere. They did loose control eventually in October, after political upheaval and forced openings.)
As for those who undermined lockdowns: It has transpired that there was a in fight in the health ministry about imposing the lockdown in February. The minister per se wanted to impose it almost immediately and there was a lot of public outcry and pressure to lock down and to close the borders to Italy. It has become known that government officials of highest levels as well as politicians LIED to those decisionmakers about the situation and the consequences in order to avoid a lockdown due to lobbying by politicians and others. I call this corruption and this fight goes on until today. I want these people taken to responsibility.
A state can only work properly if there are checks and balances. If high level decision makers who are tasked with keeping the population safe work againt this taks in order to satisfy other interests, it could be even called treason.
That is who I am talking about, not simple citizens who stopped believing what they were told.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Overall you seem to have a mental model of a population being underaged children and the government is their parents being responsible for telling them what to do. And as you blame the parents if a 5 year old does something wrong you blame the government for not forcing the population to do the right things.
People need CORRECT and SINCERE information in order to take their educated decisions. This was not the case, at least here.
I do not blame “parents” for what kids do wrong to keep your analogy, but I blame parents to lie to children to cover up their own mistakes and wrongdoing.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Maybe in 5-6 years we can think about that again, earlier outdoors with proper measures.Clearly given the situation we are in, you are right provided you are ready to live with the fact that this will mean regular vaccinations and stop and go outbreaks and lockdowns for the forseeable futute…
No, not in 5-6 years time. This summer (at least here), and then no more lockdowns.
The goal isn’t to eradicate COVID19 because this is not possible. The goal is to make it of sufficiently low severity that we aren’t turning away sick people from hospitals. That was the point of lockdowns, once you’ve got enough mitigation by vaccine, lockdowns aren’t needed. The UK will be there by the summer.
People won’t tolerate it any more anyway; people want to live not just exist. Many people knowingly do things that risk injury or death (e.g. riding motorcycles, doing sports, flying planes, driving cars) and don’t cower in their beds. The same thing will be true of COVID. Once the risk of injury is low enough, which is the result of the vaccine, then there is no need for a lockdown and we’ll be at that point by the summer. From then on it is managed like any other infectious disease.
