Bell's Banter 2021

[midgetman]

It's really interesting reading here and some of the supposedly intelligent newspaper columns. Everyone here is quite cautious it would appear, in other places it's all "I'm going on holiday anyway. I need it and it's my right."

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[bauble]

If I heard aright, the courts have ruled that people must have the right to hold 'protests' regardless of Covid regulations. Well I intend to organise a protest against the right to protest, makes sense of course.

Naturally anyone can organise a protest, against my protest against the right to protest.

[Tel 911S]

Which is why in 1972 I got my first automatic car, a Ford Cortina 2000 GXL, poo brown with a black vinyl roof. And every car since has been an automatic, and I would never go back for a road car. And it helped improve my left foot braking no end. Which surprised a car dealer recently when I test drove a car I was considering buying when he realised that that was what I doing.[/QUOTE]


Left foot braking is a very handy technique for a lot of reasons .

For rallying it can keep the car at the best angle for getting round corners , it can also keep better control on long straights when you run out of acceleration .
It does need a LOT of practice to get the feel with your left foot , but I also found it handy with my 911S . If you lose the tail on a slippery surface , just lifting off the throttle will cause it to spin , so a bit of " experienced " left foot braking will usually bring it back .
Another time , when I had a broken right leg in plaster , driving an auto with just my left foot did bring a lot of surprised looks from people .

[John Turner]

Re Bob's post, that actually does make sense to me, so I'm now worried that I might have caught some sort of Bauble mental virus for which there will definitely be no antidote

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by midgetman

It's really interesting reading here and some of the supposedly intelligent newspaper columns. Everyone here is quite cautious it would appear, in other places it's all "I'm going on holiday anyway. I need it and it's my right."

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I find it a little bemusing that everyone is claiming to have lost jobs, got no money etc, yet they all seem to be able to jet off on holiday.

We're on standby - 'might' get a jab this afternoon!

[grantp]

A couple of days ago UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a very public Astra Zeneca vaccine jab.

Was that simply an exercise in sensible PR for a company whose products are apparently receiving undue and unwise criticism from certain quarters at the moment?

Is he not already protected after his reportedly near-death experience with catching the virus this time last year?

If medical experts are suggesting he is not protected what are we to understand from that lack of immunity?

At first consideration, it would seem to suggest that for even local "travel" an annual vaccination (and "health certificate"?) might be necessary.

For International purposes, one would assume it would be vital. And repeated annually even if local regulations were less stringent.

Policing that and finding effective ways of checking the validity of certification from some parts of the world could be interesting. Bear in mind if the justification at the heart of the requirement is an extremely high rate of transmission then only a full-proof global system would permit travel activity to return to anything like the "normal" we have come to expect over the past couple of decades.

The old-style targetted vaccinations for travellers visiting certain parts of the world could be applied because the numbers involved were relatively small and in the main, for the most common needs the vaccination stamp would last more than a year - typically about 10 years for most IIRC.

The only annual vaccine that is currently commonly available on an annual basis is for flu. There is no common global variety for that vaccine as would be required for covid-19 (or variants) based on current understanding. So would that mean that a virus treatment "passport" would require travellers to have multiple vaccines?

Would that be medically acceptable? For all age groups and health situations?

Beyond that, would it be feasible and could it be effective? (Effective in health terms. Effective in economic terms is likely to be a long term unknown.)

The answers to these questions (and the understanding of the virus risk that creates them) is, I suspect, likely to be a significant influence in the lives of all Tenth's Banterers for some years to come.

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

We're on standby - 'might' get a jab this afternoon!

Lucky you and Michèle, wish you the best. Please do not lag more than necessary in the jab area…

[midgetman]

Of course it was a bit of PR for BJ to have the jab, but it was important given the Macron/Merkel stance. AFAIK all eligible people are being told to have the vaccine, especially as no-one really knows whether previous infection bestows long term immunity.

Just imagine the chaos otherwise. Class 1 citizens - they've had the vaccine. Class 2 citizens - they were hospitalised with C19 and so are are probably OK for anti bodies. Class 3 citizens - they tested positive and self isolated for a few days but really didn't feel that bad. Was it a false positive test? Are they really protected? Nightmare!



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[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by midgetman

Nightmare!

Indeed it is. But some countries come out best, like Aus 909 deaths vs France 92 000.
The Macron/Merkel tandem like to teach lessons presenting themselves as the good pupils of Europ or gendarmes de l'Europe inventing new laws or regulations every day. ATM it seems the virus is not a good pupil, ignoring any rule. May be the right time to invent a penalty for any desobedient disease?

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by grantp

A couple of days ago UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a very public Astra Zeneca vaccine jab.

Was that simply an exercise in sensible PR for a company whose products are apparently receiving undue and unwise criticism from certain quarters at the moment?

Is he not already protected after his reportedly near-death experience with catching the virus this time last year?

If medical experts are suggesting he is not protected what are we to understand from that lack of immunity?

At first consideration, it would seem to suggest that for even local "travel" an annual vaccination (and "health certificate"?) might be necessary.

For International purposes, one would assume it would be vital. And repeated annually even if local regulations were less stringent.

Policing that and finding effective ways of checking the validity of certification from some parts of the world could be interesting. Bear in mind if the justification at the heart of the requirement is an extremely high rate of transmission then only a full-proof global system would permit travel activity to return to anything like the "normal" we have come to expect over the past couple of decades.

The old-style targetted vaccinations for travellers visiting certain parts of the world could be applied because the numbers involved were relatively small and in the main, for the most common needs the vaccination stamp would last more than a year - typically about 10 years for most IIRC.

The only annual vaccine that is currently commonly available on an annual basis is for flu. There is no common global variety for that vaccine as would be required for covid-19 (or variants) based on current understanding. So would that mean that a virus treatment "passport" would require travellers to have multiple vaccines?

Would that be medically acceptable? For all age groups and health situations?

Beyond that, would it be feasible and could it be effective? (Effective in health terms. Effective in economic terms is likely to be a long term unknown.)

The answers to these questions (and the understanding of the virus risk that creates them) is, I suspect, likely to be a significant influence in the lives of all Tenth's Banterers for some years to come.

I'm certainly working on the basis that an annual jab, like the flu one I have every year) will be necessary....

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

I'm certainly working on the basis that an annual jab, like the flu one I have every year) will be necessary....

Maybe you will get one of the 18.3 million Oxford AZ that are sitting in the fridges around the EU that seemingly no-one wants. And Brussels has the cheek to be saying that they are going to stop vaccines that are being manufactured within the EU that the UK has bought on contract being delivered to us.

I just can't get my head around this childish behaviour of their politicians.

[Gerard C]

Unbelievable and inexplicable, more than a shame. They'd better use the best softwares available to list people due to jab and/or having had theirs. Its easy to be done with our Carte Vitale, a kind of health ID, but not done yet.

John did you have yours? How was it? Did you see that Croix is closed again, reopening to free practice scheduled on 25 April.

Did we upset Peter M with all this banter, should be be worried about his silence?

[andy97]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I just can't get my head around this childish behaviour of ALL politicians.

Fixed that for you, Mike.

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Unbelievable and inexplicable, more than a shame. They'd better use the best softwares available to list people due to jab and/or having had theirs. Its easy to be done with our Carte Vitale, a kind of health ID, but not done yet.

John did you have yours? How was it? Did you see that Croix is closed again, reopening to free practice scheduled on 25 April.

Did we upset Peter M with all this banter, should be be worried about his silence?

Sadly the call did not come - maybe next week. They are trying to do 1,500 each weekend for four weeks Arras.

Ironically they are doing them at the Artois Expo. In normal times I would have been there today anyway for the classic car show...

[Gerard C]

Lets hope for you, good to stay safely at home.
I read that Arras and the related towns/villages represents circa 250 k inhabitants. Dont know when the vaccination started in your area, but 6 k people does not sound much if I'm right. Do they use S vaccine, impossible to keep cold for the average doctor, or more likely AZ?

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Lets hope for you, good to stay safely at home.
I read that Arras and the related towns/villages represents circa 250 k inhabitants. Dont know when the vaccination started in your area, but 6 k people does not sound much if I'm right. Do they use S vaccine, impossible to keep cold for the average doctor, or more likely AZ?

I believe, but would be happy to be corrected if incorrect, that the Pfizer vaccine no longer needs to be stored at very low temperatures, after further research and possibly minor tweaking in it's components, and can now be stored at the same way that all the other vaccines are.

[Gerard C]

Ha, OK. Before that tweaking I wonder how many fridges we have compare to how many doses we had to store. Would be "interesting".
Proof of how we are manipulated, the big numbers announced are 5.630 M people having had a jab. Looking closer to the small lines, you learn that 2.427 M are really vaccinated, meaning two jabs. All this dated from 17 March. So 2.5 million out of 65 in total ex far away islands I cant locate on a map, ex migrants.
Louis XIV would have been a better choice. May be Louis XVI too…

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Maybe you will get one of the 18.3 million Oxford AZ that are sitting in the fridges around the EU that seemingly no-one wants. And Brussels has the cheek to be saying that they are going to stop vaccines that are being manufactured within the EU that the UK has bought on contract being delivered to us.

I just can't get my head around this childish behaviour of their politicians.

Well, I've had one already and am due another on 31st May......

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Lets hope for you, good to stay safely at home.
I read that Arras and the related towns/villages represents circa 250 k inhabitants. Dont know when the vaccination started in your area, but 6 k people does not sound much if I'm right. Do they use S vaccine, impossible to keep cold for the average doctor, or more likely AZ?

Hopefully AZ! A friend of ours went yesterday & she had Moderna although I think AZ was on offer.

[john ruston]

Understand the P vaccine needs to be kept at minus 70/80
That’s why it’s usually dished out via hospital or major vaccination points.
The AZ and Single J&J are flexible in that they can use normal refrigerators.

[Paul D]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

I find it a little bemusing that everyone is claiming to have lost jobs, got no money etc, yet they all seem to be able to jet off on holiday.

Maybe it's just me - I've never really been a 'serial holidayer' - but are people really that desperate for a holiday?

Can some really not bear to wait a little longer, to the extent that they're already booking foreign travel and will jet off the moment they're allowed too? I just don't get it. Would common sense not dictate that it's perhaps prudent to avoid unnecessary travel to places still heavily infected by the virus and still with large populations of un-vaccinated locals?

Would waiting until next year for a foreign holiday really kill you? Just as not waiting may do...

[midgetman]

This

But reading newspaper forums and places such as Twitter, there's so many people who don't believe in the pandemic, who resent being told they can't do exactly what they want when they want, and others who just don't give a toss about themselves or anyone else.

I've had my first AZ jab but TBH I don't particularly want even a mild form of C19. I'm not "living in fear" as some people call it, but I can't afford time off work. I take care with colds and flu as well!

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[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Paul D

Maybe it's just me - I've never really been a 'serial holidayer' - but are people really that desperate for a holiday?



Would waiting until next year for a foreign holiday really kill you? Just as not waiting may do...

Some of us are hoping to get away, however we have spent the last 20 odd years in our Spanish home for several months of the year.
I fully understand what you say and do agree with you, however we were lucky last year and got down there last Sep/Oct and wore masks and obeyed the curfews that were put in place.
It's more a "way of life" for us rather than a holiday as we have always tended to spend some of the winter in warmer climates.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by midgetman

This

But reading newspaper forums and places such as Twitter, there's so many people who don't believe in the pandemic, who resent being told they can't do exactly what they want when they want, and others who just don't give a toss about themselves or anyone else.

Tell that to my mates widow, we went to his funeral last Thursday !

[Lancsbreaker]

Originally Posted by Paul D

Maybe it's just me - I've never really been a 'serial holidayer' - but are people really that desperate for a holiday?

Can some really not bear to wait a little longer, to the extent that they're already booking foreign travel and will jet off the moment they're allowed too? I just don't get it. Would common sense not dictate that it's perhaps prudent to avoid unnecessary travel to places still heavily infected by the virus and still with large populations of un-vaccinated locals?

Would waiting until next year for a foreign holiday really kill you? Just as not waiting may do...

But, but, if I can't go on holiday how can I post selfies to social media to make all my "friends" feel bad about themselves? I really NEED to do that........




Or to put it another way, I'd be happy to just be able to go and meet my mates in the pub for a pint and a chat.......