Are you worried about coronavirus?

3 Likes

Trying to find a job, after the coronavirus:

:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

2 Likes

This will also stay an important topic for some years, I guess:

Almost half of doctors, nurses and other ICU staff have reported symptoms of PTSD, severe depression or anxiety, according to research published last month. Of these, about 40% had probable PTSD – far higher than the rates seen among military veterans.

A survey of 7,776 doctors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland by the British Medical Association last December found that 58% had some form of anxiety or depression and 46% said their mental health had worsened during the pandemic.

2 Likes

A summary of modelling studies of the time to the most recent common ancestor of Sars-CoV-2 sequences estimated the start of the pandemic between mid-November and early December.

The market in Wuhan, in the end, was more of an amplifying event rather than necessarily a true ground zero.

1 Like

This thread is now a year old.

I saw numerous, this felt like me the most

3 Likes

Saw this story and it got me wondering about quirks in various countries’ vaccination programmes.

In the UK we seem to be on a fairly rigid system of oldest first and then continuing in age order. With the addition of medically vulnerable people and frontline health workers ahead of the rest. It never occurred to me that young people (outside of healthcare) would be prioritised but apparently that is the case in both the US and China.

How does your vaccination programme work?

2 Likes

Barely.


I had no idea that tourism targeting thing was under way, btw. Theoharis isn’t the brightest bulb, I’m not even sure it means what he thinks it means, I’ll have to check.

3 Likes

We’re about halfway down this chart now, with about 17% of Nevada having had at least one shot so far. As far as I can tell, it seems like it has been running pretty smoothly here.

3 Likes

The EU vaccination programme is still going more slowly than in some other areas, but our government expects large vaccine deliveries in April, allowing a speed up to daily administering a dose to 2% of the population.

2 Likes

I’m sleepless and read “NEVADANS” as “NEWDANS” and I doublechecked why are new Shodans prioritized, which thread is this :woman_facepalming:.

6 Likes

In suppose it’s that I don’t understand the terminology but where are nurses on this chart? I’m fascinated by the prioritisation of the police over health workers.

It’s not completely clear if it’s tourism targeting exactly or just logistical practicality - as it says, if you are taking vaccines and people to administer it to an island of 1000 people, it’s inefficient to only jab a few of them and then have to go back to do the rest later. You might as well vaccinate everyone there and be done. I think the “come to Greek islands for your hols as everyone is vaccinated there” is a marketing side benefit really. But maybe I’m too optimistic in my interpretation

But how does the prioritisation work?

In the UK we have deliberately chosen not to prioritise teachers, logistics staff, police etc. Which looks quite different to Nevada for example.

2 Likes

Yes, this will probably happen (or they will screw it up, I give 50-50), although those tiny islands are probably less than 10.000 people all together (I’m guessing). Not much of a difference, but makes sense logistically (and also they are really difficult to reach, islands have serious problems when health emergencies happen).

But I hadn’t heard of that PR tourism thing “come to our covid-free islands” and I’m very unsure they have a plan in place, especially since the people who work in tourism traditionally live in mainland and will go to those islands for tourism season (unvaccinated would be my guess, they say they’ll get priority vaccination but who will they leave out, program isn’t rolling out efficiently). So, not much of a difference, if the regular residents are vaccinated and the hotel/ restaurant stuff is not.

2 Likes

It’s not completely clear if it’s tourism targeting exactly or just logistical practicality

The word “papatza” comes to mind and describes the situation perfectly.

What you said sounds reasonable for the small islands, but there are many issues with it, as well as the “covid-free” tag the want to stamp on them. The problems that turn this reasonable idea into a papatza are these:
a) Very few people live in the islands during the winter. Even people that were locals, no longer live there most of the time. This means that come the summer, when all these will return, the result will be a mixed crowd of a few vaccinated people and a lot of non-vaccinated ones. This is not a small number. Even in a non-touristic village like my own, the population is like 2500 people in the winter, 6000 people in the summer. The analogy is even steeper in smaller more picturesque islands, of course.
b) A lot of people are already cutting the line to the vaccine using their connections/money. Now, how easy would you say that would be done in islands that currently have less people than they appear to have on the census?
c) Also, how quick would a local living in Athens be in making a flash trip from Athens to the island to get vaccinated and leave? That would create a vast movement and crowded ships in an era where the experts say that somehow locking everyone down at 6 o’ clock and not allowing people to drive 5km out of town. But somehow traveling to another island is “quite ok”? Quite the papatza, more likely.
d) The problem Gia mentioned with the people that work in the tourism industry. Those are usually not islanders at all and relatively young (20-40 years old predominantly), so it is very doubtful they would have been vaccinated by this summer.
e) Then we have the question, which vaccine is being administered? The one that reduces the symptoms or the one that reduces the spread? Iirc they are different.
f) Then we have the tourists themselves. Will they be tested coming in and out of the island? Will they have to have paperwork saying they had the vaccine? And if yes, which vaccine did they have? If one case goes undetected and people just party wild due to following the “entrance protocols”, how “covid-free” is any place really? Not much.
g) Last but not the least, the people that transport the food, the truckers and the rich people coming from God knows where, in their private yacht. Definitely not the same case, but they all have something similar. This: Who is going to test them? Noone.

So, it is a “feel good tactic” both by the people that provide the touristic activities and the people that will eventually use them. All they want is the “feeling” that “they did their best”. After all 100% security is impossible, so even if you promise it, everyone really knows that it is a papatza, but they wink at the mirror and book the tickets.

Personally I wouldn’t be going vacations this year even if you paid me too. I just do not understand how someone can actually relax in such a nebulous situation, but hey, since we offer “consequence free tourism”, there are bound to be a lot of “worry free” people that will show up.

And that is the real secret of any good papatza. One the one side you have someone that is trying to pull wool over someone’s eyes and on the other side there is someone going “some wool over my eyes might be nice now” :wink:

2 Likes

Έλιωσα ρε συ δευτεριάτικα!!!

1 Like

Fascinating insights @Gia and @JethOrensin. This is the sort of thing that’s interesting for me.

I understood the would be some kind of vaccination certificate or negative test requirement but as you say, hardly foolproof and you make it sound like there will be a lot of fools to proof… Many of them from the UK in all likelihood.

3 Likes

Many of them from the UK in all likelihood.

Well, a lot of them notoriously come to Greece to have the epitomy of a “consequence free” vacation, usually involving a lot of alcohol and later passing out in the streets, if they are lucky (the unlucky ones either have fights or sex they cannot remember in the morning :face_with_head_bandage:).

So, one could say that they already have a negligent and “meh, whatever” attitude, that is needed in this case in order to travel, but it is definitely not the correct mindset in a “let’s be careful and have some nice cozy vacations” which the situation calls for.

Funny enough, Bill Maher had a segment this week about “raising awareness” and he made a great quip about Budweiser “existing in this planet to reduce our awareness, not raise it. That’s its job” or something like that. I think that is a point that is quite fitting in this matter.

2 Likes

From what I’ve seen, most countries prioritize elder citizens, high-risk citizens and essential workers (who probably won’t get a vacation anyway).

So, imagine high risk and old people being the bulk of tourists everywhere, very few families, young couples non-existent because no work/ money. It’s going to be fascinating (not).

2 Likes

Our prioritisation is published here (in Dutch): Coronaprik | Vaccinatie tegen het coronavirus | Rijksoverheid.nl, which is still subject to change (depending on supply and suitability of vaccines for different groups).

Short summary in English:

Start Vaccine Health Care Workers for … General Population
Jan Pfizer Covid Care / Ambulance / Nursing Homes Mentally Disabled / Older than 65
Jan AstraZeneca GPs / Revalidation / Disabled / Mental Disorders Mental Disorders / Age 60-65
March Pfizer/AstraZeneca Social Health Care Age 18-59 with increased health risk
May AstraZeneca Other Age 18-59
3 Likes

By June a lot of people will either have recieved a vaccine or will be able to be tested easily, so I do not think that younger people will not come. Besides, we ourselves might be more “accommodating” and since we will be “covid free”, we can be our usual famous “less strict” selves and let people in with fewer precautions.

For example, instead of testing a whole family, they might test only the parents or just one parent, as a sample. Clear one? Pass the whole family.

Before you balk at the idea, the whole thing came to me due to a dialogue I had yesterday in the street with someone that is a bit older than me and comes to train at basketball, but was absent for some weeks.
Him: - well, I hadn’t been coming lately, I was a bit ill.
Me: - Did you go do a test for Covid?
– Nah, it was not Covid.
– How’d you know?
– My fiancee had to do the test a couple of times. If it was covid, she would have had it too, right?
– Riiiiight.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this actually IS a strictly personal anecdote, but can’t you just see it becoming “official policy” with great ease, in our country? :wink:

2 Likes

Our season will start roughly in June (guess), I’m not sure enough young people to sustain this will be vaccinated by then AND be the ones that aren’t essential workers (prioritized) AND be the ones with jobs and money for vacation. Some countries may, some are circuses like us.

And we may be accommodating to accept them, I don’t know if their countries will be accommodating to take them back.

3 Likes