Hi all

[Barrychuckle]

If under 11's don't have to wear a mask in a supermarkets, they can damn well go to school, all the local supermarkets had plenty of them running wild in our local town shops this week

Sadly many of the older teens aren't much better, many of the pubs in Shrewsbury have banned under 21's as they say this age group generally have a complete disregard for social distancing. I feel we're going to be like an entire class which is given detention because of the behavior of a minority.

 

[captain clutterbuck]

Add to the pandemic the fact that for this last bank holiday of the year the weather is not great so venturing out could be a damp affair so in a bid to lighten the mood here is a picture of Copacabana beach I screen dumped from live feed. Its 6.24 am there start of there day wouldn't it be great to just stroll along the seashore , if you really use your imagination perhaps you could do that

 

[Marianna]

Speaking of lockdown, as of last November, I was all booked to spend a month in Great Britain starting about three days ago and including a week in Holmfirth, but cancelled all of it because the infection rate in each of the areas I was to visit was, and still is, so much higher than in my home area, Steuben County, New York State. Nearly all business in the state have been open for a few weeks, but with masking for everyone age two and older and distancing required upon pain of business closure. Most people are cooperating, so our required, mostly random, testing of a minimum of 30 people per thousand population has resulted in only one positive result in this county per day for the last three days, none for the three days before that, which works out to 0.3% for yesterday, with a seven-day rolling average of 0.2%. Of course, the contacts of everyone who tests positive are traced and tested, all positives turned up in that process are also traced and tested, and so on, ad infinitum.

Despite those statistics, and because I would have had to transit through Detroit and Amsterdam airports on the way to Glasgow, my first destination, I would have had to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. Upon return home, because I would have been out of the country and because I would have transited through Michigan, I would have had to isolate for another 14 days. Most of the other states have such a high infection rate that incomers from those states to New York State are required to quarantine.

I habitually view Beatties web cam showing Church Yard, Towngate, Market Walk and a bit of Victoria Bridge (but not Sid' Cafe), and I am appalled at the general lack of masks and distancing among people who obviously are not from the same household or the permitted multi-household group, for instance, wait staff and diners. I'll be back in Great Britain when I've had the needed doses of a safe, effective vaccine and my post-vaccination blood test shows a sufficient concentration of antibodies to keep me safe from infection.

In the meantime, please, all of my friends, keep yourselves safe and healthy

 

[Peripheral]

Speaking of lockdown, as of last November, I was all booked to spend a month in Great Britain starting about three days ago and including a week in Holmfirth, but cancelled all of it because the infection rate in each of the areas I was to visit was, and still is, so much higher than in my home area, Steuben County, New York State. Nearly all business in the state have been open for a few weeks, but with masking for everyone age two and older and distancing required upon pain of business closure. Most people are cooperating, so our required, mostly random, testing of a minimum of 30 people per thousand population has resulted in only one positive result in this county per day for the last three days, none for the three days before that, which works out to 0.3% for yesterday, with a seven-day rolling average of 0.2%. Of course, the contacts of everyone who tests positive are traced and tested, all positives turned up in that process are also traced and tested, and so on, ad infinitum.

Despite those statistics, and because I would have had to transit through Detroit and Amsterdam airports on the way to Glasgow, my first destination, I would have had to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. Upon return home, because I would have been out of the country and because I would have transited through Michigan, I would have had to isolate for another 14 days. Most of the other states have such a high infection rate that incomers from those states to New York State are required to quarantine.

I habitually view Beatties web cam showing Church Yard, Towngate, Market Walk and a bit of Victoria Bridge (but not Sid' Cafe), and I am appalled at the general lack of masks and distancing among people who obviously are not from the same household or the permitted multi-household group, for instance, wait staff and diners. I'll be back in Great Britain when I've had the needed doses of a safe, effective vaccine and my post-vaccination blood test shows a sufficient concentration of antibodies to keep me safe from infection.

In the meantime, please, all of my friends, keep yourselves safe and healthy

Yes we are keeping safe Marianna. I can see that you are a sensible person and that you will also be taking great care. I hope that you are not kept waiting too long for your return visit to SW country. .... Peri.

 

[Marianna]

Yes we are keeping safe Marianna. I can see that you are a sensible person and that you will also be taking great care. I hope that you are not kept waiting too long for your return visit to SW country. .... Peri.

I take my cue from Dr. Anthony Fauci, backed up by the New York State Department of Health. Both initially said that it would be reasonable to expect a safe, effective vaccine by September of 2021 at the latest, perhaps by March of that year at the earliest. Dr. Fauci was quoted in today's Market Watch as having said that given the unexpectedly brisk pace of enrollment in the several vaccine trials currently in progress in the US, we might have identified a safe, effective vaccine by the end of the year. Then, of course, it would go to large scale trials to ensure that it was broadly safe and effective. That should be sufficient time to be vaccinated and to be assured that I've acquired sufficient immunity to be safe from infection before traveling. It's also late enough in the year so that I'll have had my annual flu shot..

I've reserved a place on a Bloomsbury Group literary tour with HF Holidays, based in West Sussex, starting on 11 October, 2021, flying into Heathrow, via Detroit. From there, I'll gradually move up to Manchester, possibly via Birmingham in order to take a local bus to Kingswinford, where a branch of my mother's family, Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, came from in 1639. I've already visited Nuneaton, where another branch of that family, Edward and Ruth Wood, came from in 1637. On the way, I'd like to revisit Bletchley Park.

My itinerary will probably look like it was planned by someone with no knowledge of British geography, because after my short stay in Manchester to revisit IWM North, I'll move along to Holmfirth, via Huddersfield. After a week or longer there, I'm likely to carry on to the Lake District if there's a photography workshop scheduled at the right time. Then back to Manchester around mid-November to fly home to south-central New York State via Amsterdam and Detroit. That should get me home shortly before the first heavy snowfall tangles flight schedules. I traveled on those dates last year, and the first snowfall was the day after I arrived at home. (The last was Mothers' Day, always on the second Sunday of May.)

 

[Barrychuckle]

Wow, you certainly capitalise on every moment whilst you're over here, I really hope you get to visit here next year. I know Kingswinford as I live close to the Midlands, to manage your expectations it certainly isn't the most picturesque these days! But you certainly have an amazing itinerary and I think it's great you're experiencing real places!

After visiting New England for the first time a couple of years ago, visiting amazing places like Bar Harbour & Newport I'm hoping to visit your neck of the woods myself. Having extensively visited the US in the past, New England really was the highlight!

 

[Marianna]

Wow, you certainly capitalise on every moment whilst you're over here, I really hope you get to visit here next year. I know Kingswinford as I live close to the Midlands, to manage your expectations it certainly isn't the most picturesque these days! But you certainly have an amazing itinerary and I think it's great you're experiencing real places!

After visiting New England for the first time a couple of years ago, visiting amazing places like Bar Harbour & Newport I'm hoping to visit your neck of the woods myself. Having extensively visited the US in the past, New England really was the highlight!

My only interest in Kingswinford is the churchyard, since Broadfield House Glass Museum was closed and the exhibits were moved about three minutes down the road to Wordsley. My Southwick ancestor was a glass maker and that collection contained some historic local glass, so I'd go to Wordsley, too, in the hope of seeing pieces contemporary with his work, if not an actual example of his work.

Thirty-six years ago, I briefly visited Bar Harbor as part of a week-long guided walk on Mount Desert Island. The carriage roads all over the island make for wonderfully comfortable walking, and probably for cycling, as well. At age 40, that was my first sight of an ocean.

My neck of the woods includes the Finger Lakes, with lovely, photogenic scenery and lots of winery tours. Of course, the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, south of Seneca Lake, is worth a visit.

 

[WellyMan]

I take my cue from Dr. Anthony Fauci, backed up by the New York State Department of Health. Both initially said that it would be reasonable to expect a safe, effective vaccine by September of 2021 at the latest, perhaps by March of that year at the earliest. Dr. Fauci was quoted in today's Market Watch as having said that given the unexpectedly brisk pace of enrollment in the several vaccine trials currently in progress in the US, we might have identified a safe, effective vaccine by the end of the year. Then, of course, it would go to large scale trials to ensure that it was broadly safe and effective. That should be sufficient time to be vaccinated and to be assured that I've acquired sufficient immunity to be safe from infection before traveling. It's also late enough in the year so that I'll have had my annual flu shot..

I've reserved a place on a Bloomsbury Group literary tour with HF Holidays, based in West Sussex, starting on 11 October, 2021, flying into Heathrow, via Detroit. From there, I'll gradually move up to Manchester, possibly via Birmingham in order to take a local bus to Kingswinford, where a branch of my mother's family, Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, came from in 1639. I've already visited Nuneaton, where another branch of that family, Edward and Ruth Wood, came from in 1637. On the way, I'd like to revisit Bletchley Park.

My itinerary will probably look like it was planned by someone with no knowledge of British geography, because after my short stay in Manchester to revisit IWM North, I'll move along to Holmfirth, via Huddersfield. After a week or longer there, I'm likely to carry on to the Lake District if there's a photography workshop scheduled at the right time. Then back to Manchester around mid-November to fly home to south-central New York State via Amsterdam and Detroit. That should get me home shortly before the first heavy snowfall tangles flight schedules. I traveled on those dates last year, and the first snowfall was the day after I arrived at home. (The last was Mothers' Day, always on the second Sunday of May.)

It depends on what Fauci means by effective. IIRC the flu vaccine is often less than 60% effective and it depends on what strain is circulating at the time.

 

[Marianna]

It depends on what Fauci means by effective. IIRC the flu vaccine is often less than 60% effective and it depends on what strain is circulating at the time.

I've been in the lucky <60% each year for the last 58. Before 1962, when I turned 18, I never had a flu shot, and I always had a severe case of the flu that left me laid up most of the winter. Starting that year, I've had the shot each fall, and haven't had the flu even once.

The complication with the COVID-19 virus is that it apparently evolves very quickly. Some victims who have recovered and whose blood tests show antibodies have come down with it again quite soon. The genetic profile of the virus causing the second infection has been just different enough from the first one to have evaded the antibodies. In the case of a COVID-19 vaccine, to be effective, it needs to create an immunity that can adjust itself to new variants of the virus as they develop.

 

[Barrychuckle]

There was a really interesting statistician on R2 today, who said that the probability of anyone in the UK dying in a given day is 1 in 2m, based on 44 in every million contracting on a day combined with the current death rate. I appreciate you've got things much worse in parts of the US but the overall message is the same, it's still important to enjoy life and do the things you enjoy whilst managing the risks.

 

[WellyMan]

I've been in the lucky <60% each year for the last 58. Before 1962, when I turned 18, I never had a flu shot, and I always had a severe case of the flu that left me laid up most of the winter. Starting that year, I've had the shot each fall, and haven't had the flu even once.

The complication with the COVID-19 virus is that it apparently evolves very quickly. Some victims who have recovered and whose blood tests show antibodies have come down with it again quite soon. The genetic profile of the virus causing the second infection has been just different enough from the first one to have evaded the antibodies. In the case of a COVID-19 vaccine, to be effective, it needs to create an immunity that can adjust itself to new variants of the virus as they develop.

Wow, that's unlucky if you got flu every winter. I've had it twice, the first time was horrendous and I was off work for two weeks.

Maybe the mutations of SARS2 is why we've never previously had a vaccine for any coronavirus. The good news is that many people may already have a natural immunity.

 

[WellyMan]

There was a really interesting statistician on R2 today, who said that the probability of anyone in the UK dying in a given day is 1 in 2m, based on 44 in every million contracting on a day combined with the current death rate. I appreciate you've got things much worse in parts of the US but the overall message is the same, it's still important to enjoy life and do the things you enjoy whilst managing the risks.

Indeed, life is always about trade-offs and enjoying life despite some risks. In the UK the Covid death toll is about the same as from flu & pneumonia in a bad year, both of which are infectious diseases, and which for most people is a neglibile increase in mortality risk over life until now. And the ironic thing about the school opening controversy is that flu is generally more deadly to children than Covid.

 

[captain clutterbuck]

Quite a lot of Members in the UK are based in the North , including me, and the Government have announced some additional rules for those living in the North :-

1. No more than one child is permitted under the Spinning Jenny at any one time.
2. Clogs must be sanitised on entering and leaving the Corner Shop
3. Masks must be worn and only one Family are permitted to ride in the Pony and Trap.
4. Pals are not allowed to meet when walking their Whippets.
5. If you can work from the Poorhouse then you should work from the Poorhouse.
6. Punishment from the local Squire for not doffing you cap to him will be deferred until 2021.
7. Masks are to be worn at all times on Stephenson's Rocket and the Trams.