Britain Leads the Way, Again!

[Xairbusdriver]

Hope the distribution of the new vaccine(s) goes well! Keep that stiff upper lip, at least until the  vaccination numbers reach the critical size!

[Highmac]

The first recipients got their jabs this morning - the US/Belgian Pfizer BioNTech. It's hoped the Oxford one will be approved soon.


In the meantime, Boris and Co decided to loosen the reins over Christmas, basically allowing families to gather over five days. One of our columnists said they could expect another spike about January 8 and, as a grandparent, he urged others to tell their families "we don't want to visit you - and we definitely don't want you lot visiting us".  Most folk we've talked to are going on that policy. We'll be using FaceTime and the like.


Oh and if you saw the comment from one of our less-bright Gov ministers going on about how Britain is so much better than any other country, we're the world's best, blah, blah, blah... Most people's reaction was on the lines of "Good grief, who the hell does he sound like... do they share a script-writer?" 

[krissel]

Neil, I'm afraid idiocy is contagious. At least we are beginning to hear some sensible talk from our government-to-be. 


Things are getting pretty scary again in NJ with a big uptick in cases, though so far the hospitalization/death rate is much lower than last Spring. My county has been one of the safest in the state and we're hoping to stay that way. I'm hunkering down for the next few months and trying to get my family to do the same. My sister is very careful and goes to the food store at 7 AM for the senior hour, but she and my niece are exposed to my niece's infant who is ferried back and forth to her ex. His family has no concept of Covid precautions.    And my nephew says several of his coworkers have tested positive but they haven't closed the business. 



Good luck with the vaccinations. You guys are the guinea pigs at this point. This is one time I'm not necessarily pushing to be the first in line. 

[Xairbusdriver]

I've read that the number of folks who say they will take A vaccine has risen to ~60%. We're still in the "I-can't-be-bothered-to-wear-a-mask-why-would-I-take-TWO-injections" stage... Fortunately, it was not the generation that fought WWII...

[Highmac]

This is one time I'm not necessarily pushing to be the first in line. 

Moi aussi! They're going to call up the over-80s fairly early, but I don't reach that landmark for a while yet...

A couple of people had allergic reactions, but they are reported to have been people who were ready for that as they already had allergies. Report said they recovered quickly. 

From the BBC

There have been about 1.7 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and more than 60,000 people have died, government figures show.

Our population is given as around 67 million if anyone wants to work out percentages...

Off topic: Does anyone see strange instructions in the line below the quote? ([e.g. size=inherit][/ size]) I see them only in preview - they don't show in the entered text and there seems no way to edit them out.

[Frances144]

I'm a tad nervous about the anaphylaxis tbh, which I have had.

But..... I have an epipen and I know how to use it.

And I am most definitely having the vaccine (preferably the one that doesn't give anaphylaxis).

And that "this is because we are British and we are the best".... well, he is an arse.

[Xairbusdriver]

I did see those non-forum software tags. Is it possible that you copied that text from a web page? If so, this forum software may have interpreted some CSS embedded styles and tried to convert them to tags. "inherit" is a way of forcing some styles to use those that the "parent" declared. Also noticed that the 'colors' were assigned RGB values. That works in html/CSS but this software uses color names (black, red, navy, etc.) instead. BTW, "etc." is not a color that humans can see.