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[Zangi]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1234046

Georgia doing it’s part in keeping Covid19 strong for the school season. 

God Bless America.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Kemp is very upset that DeSantis has been beating him out for America's Scummiest Governor.

[Starver]

We seem to have had the "we need to look 'normal' ASAP" attitude from the top (both when considering the original, pre-lockdown response and in the unlocking phase), which I ascribe clearly to wanting to look at least as unfettered as Germany mostly manages to be - for Brexit reasons, obviously - and this is only slightly spoiled by having now had far the worst time of any 'important' country in Europe and having to repush localised/delayed responses on us again (Leicester and the masks-for-shops, etc)when the hope clearly was that we'd got over the hump and should only be heading back to normality, our reputation a bit tattered on the continental/world stage but now "nothing to see here, honest guv"...

I mean, when we slammed the Lockdown on, we'd had schools and colleges reacting a week or two before, even the Football League ("not a matter of Life Or Death, it's far more important than that")[1] had blown the whistle to stop play. But the sudden "Ok, we're locked down, tomorrow", seemed to be as if the driving-test guy had tapped the dashboard for an emergency stop (where "key wheels" were allowed to keep rolling forwards) and now he's almost tapping the dashboard to tell us that we now need to start looking in the mirrors (like they weren't too bothered about, before), now that we're actually merging back into traffic from a quiet sideroad we did our three-point-turn on.





[1] I'm not a football person, but it is obvious to me that this is not a small decision. My 'own' sport (a distinct subsection of a multifaceted recreation) is an inherently socially-distancing activity, during the event, and not even a huge spectator-puller, by most standards, but the national governing body still had pulled the season and by now is only just starting to allow participation to renew but with revamps to remove the 'HQ' gathering/reconvening and keep officials and competitors alike sufficiently separate from each other out to before arriving and after leaving. You even bring your own pen to Sign On/Off on the paperwork!  Despite (or because of) this, at District level we've advised at least one major event that we cannot accept their going ahead, and most of the ones scheduled before autumn have been pulled/not-reinstated by their organisers, with various ones after that either undecided or not publicly decided upon but probably going to call off.

[feelotraveller]

Speaking of horseshit, more shenanigans from down under: a flyer was put in letterboxes yesterday throughtout Garran, a suburb of Canberra (the national capital), that is home to a 'temporary' Covid testing site (adjacent the hospital).  Really recommend viewing/reading the reproduced image of the flyer if you are up for a good laugh, it has doozies like "The upcoming COVID-19 'vaccination' will contain a UN tracking device'.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-17/act-conspiracy-theory-coronavirus-letter-delivered-to-canberrans/12465162

[wierd]

wow.

Just.. Just wow.

I see AU is on course to rival US in terms of crackpot potency.

[Starver]

(@Naxza) Because of the Fixed Term act, for elections, which specifies 5 years, the next anticipated UK General Eection is May 2024, because the previous one was late last year and it's supposed to be a given day in May in the fifth year hence from the prior election, unless that prior election was even earlier in the year in which case it's the May four years hence.

Spoiler: Maybe... (click to show/hide)

In the few years since we've had the Fixed Term Act in place (since 2011), apart from the inbuilt 'first' iteration of May 2015, no term has gone to 5 years, because the mechanism has get-outs to 'allow' an early election.  Prior to the Act, this was usually at the sole whim of the PM/government (to gain 'advantage', at least perceived), where not forced by No Confidence votes/whatever. Since then it has needed ⅔rds of MPs to agree, and (politics being what it is) the Opposition has never felt it politic to (sufficiently) oppose the suggestion... Sort of like Marty McFly being goaded into an action by suggestions that he's a chicken.

That said, it has had mixed results. In 2017, Theresa May thought she could reinforce her situation (perhaps "Brexit, but not a hard one") and ended up with a surprisingly large loss of support just short of losing power, but it weakened her (and strengthened her Harder-Brexit 'allies', who could not now be ignored as a fringe group), and basically led to her having to relinquish leadership because of the internal Hard Brexiteers.  She mostly lost ground due to the popular rise of Corbyn (and other 'minority oppositions'), and it led to Boris Johnson taking over, with a nominal 2022 'next election' but sub-minimal Conservative control over the imminent "Brexit deadline" of early '20.

Johnson didn't like that, and called his early election in 2019, as mentioned. By good luck or good judgement, or maybe because he had people that were better at the devious backroom plotting than May had, his results benefited from an "unpopularity fall" of Corbyn, and he got what May had wanted (but with the emphasis of Hard Brexit support being what it seems he was after, and courted, and capitalised upon).  Though I think he was at least partially lucky to have an upswing just as Labour had a downswing, due to a number of not-really-Brexit issues, as virtually all parties had their own internal splits due to the B-Word (plus racism, plus the nature of their current/prospective leaderships, etc), and the News Cycles between the calling of the election and the day of the vote were always going to be very unpredictable, even/especially with the backroom gurus 'spinning' the issues involved.

So, probably, we aren't going to vote within the next year, well, half a year... But who knows. If Boris hadn't survived hospital, who knows, but it seems he's not (yet) been handed the Black Spot by cabinet, government, parliament or electorate - or not yet enough of one to start to get people guessing how they can try to force an election into being with Covid acting as a confounding factor (the opposite to what Trump may be thinking... If he can't engineer enough Good News for his liking, what can he do to 'legitimately' hold off November).

Thus, unlike in the US, we aren't (expecting to be) voting any time soon. But even in the midst of the Pandemic, we're obviously being geared up to do the early-2021 Brexity thing (the thing the early-2020 Brexity thing set up to happen), and for that we need not to look like the film 28 Days Later is happening for real (even if it means that in trying not to look like it, we actually end up more like it than we needed to), to get the 'best' out of things. I think some of those in charge (behind the scenes) would have prefered the (in-universe hoped-for) Edge Of Tomorrow template of Europe being over-run, where we just need to prove we have the wherewithall to re-enact D-Day and save the day, generously allowing the Yanks to tag along and give them a purpose in life or something...

(Though, at one point, it looked more like Day Of The Triffids was the model, where the Isle Of White was going to be the start of the global fight back against the menace, but with surveillance and smartphones instead of surveillance and flame-throwers.)

[Starver]

(Double-post, but the editing to that last one was mostly Typos corrected, this is New Information, though I'll borrow an element of my prior post anyway...)

Instead of WW2/D-Day, it seems it's WW1/"It'll all be over by Christmas"...  Call me a pessimist[1], but I doubt it.

[1] As if you're going to be so kind to only call me that(!)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

[Rockeater]

Yay, so we will need a powerful vaccine for it! that gonna last until 2025 isn't it.

[ZBridges]

Does this mean we would need shots every month or possibly every week?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This isn't a confirmation, but alongside the other alleged reinfections it is a bad fucking sign. We know the antibody levels don't last and we know that other human coronaviruses tend not to cause lasting immunity. The question now is how well immune memory can respond to reinfection. If well, immunity and vaccines might work fine. If not...

[Iduno]

Does this mean we would need shots every month or possibly every week?

Nah, but boosters every 3 months means most people won't do it, even if they could somehow afford to. We're looking at more of a permanent thing now. Assuming the reinfection thing is real.

[ZBridges]

Why would someone not get booster shots every 3 months if they could afford to do so, assuming that these booster shots would reduce the risk of infection?

[hector13]

Does this mean we would need shots every month or possibly every week?

Nah, but boosters every 3 months means most people won't do it, even if they could somehow afford to. We're looking at more of a permanent thing now. Assuming the reinfection thing is real.

That’s only really a problem in countries that charge for healthcare or have significant anti-vac movements.

[martinuzz]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

The doctor “tested positive again because she has remnants of her first virus still floating around in her body,” a hospital spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
 The doctor suffered from fever, cough and muscle pain when she tested positive for the virus in April, but she recovered and tested negative in May and June.

Starting to look like this virus shares traits with HIV, in that it can hide itself from the immune system (and tests) in the body.  As in, once you got it, you're a carrier for life.

Does this mean we would need shots every month or possibly every week?

Nah, but boosters every 3 months means most people won't do it, even if they could somehow afford to. We're looking at more of a permanent thing now. Assuming the reinfection thing is real.

That’s only really a problem in countries that charge for healthcare or have significant anti-vac movements.

Depends how sick you get from the vaccine itself.  Not everyone can afford to call in sick for a week every 3 months / not every boss will be very understanding and not fire you.