Covid 19 - Updates from your zones

[lumilaulu]

Here, the government has lifted a whole lot of restrictions, stating they want to "give responsibility back to the people", as if this whole pandemic hasn't shown that people aren't willing to take responsibility for their own and others' health. The politicians also like to say "now that so many people have been vaccinated", ignoring the fact that only just over a quarter of the total population has already had both doses, and about half hasn't had anything yet. And then there's this more infectious delta variant coming up...

[chucao]

What I can say is that in my country, everytime we do a step forward we also do three or more steps backwards. It's frustrating you know

(Sorry, bad english. Correct me if you want ^^)

[Opaque]

Sorry to hear that Chucao. It seems like most of the countries are taking steps backwards. I understand your frustration.

[catbirds]

chucao, it really is upsetting to watch this unfold again and again. And in a lot of non-western and/or poorer countries a part of the issue is from vaccines being distributed unfairly across the globe. Vaccines seem to be the way out that the government is banking on at this point.

Yastreb, I think patchwork is the best way to describe restrictions. It seems to be kind of clear in Melbourne, though. I have a friend there who attended a convention a few weeks ago, but maybe that's changed (again) at this time I'm glad you're able to visit your sister and go to better supermarkets! Take care, as usual.

My frustration with the government response(s) to the pandemic over time might better be expressed elsewhere on this forum, but my stance on personal responsibility is that giving up a few luxuries for public health isn't really an infringement upon your rights. But maybe that's just me, I've never made a habit of going out for dinners. And the overall situation is pretty conducive to irrational assumptions.

... would your employer happen to appreciate some regional avantgarde fashion?

Funny, I opened this page and instantly recognized that this is pretty much how every canadian dresses in the winter. Well, minus the gas masks, but they'd be a cool thing to add! Makes the winters a bit less boring, I think.

[Yastreb]

Today the restrictions were amended again. On the practical side, I won't be going to an FRPG session tomorrow; I'll be attending via Zoom.

From 11:59pm on Thursday 17 June 2021, if you live in metropolitan Melbourne:
There are no restrictions on the reasons to leave home but staying COVIDSafe remains important.
There are no limits on the distance you can travel, and you can travel to regional Victoria.
You can travel to Victoria’s Alpine Resorts if all visitors have a COVID-19 test within 72 hours of departing Melbourne and receive a negative test (children under 12 years not included). Visitors must be able to show evidence of a negative test as a condition of entry, such as a text message from a testing provider.
You can have up to two adults plus dependants visit your home per day.
Face masks are mandatory indoors, except at your home.
Face masks are recommended outdoors where you cannot maintain 1.5 metres from others.
If you have any symptoms, no matter how mild you must get tested for COVID-19.
Check-in everywhere you visit, no matter how long you spend at that location.

Social gatherings
Up to two adults can visit a household per day, plus dependants. Infants under 12 months are not included in this cap.
You can see friends and family outdoors in a public place in a group of up to 20 people. A public place is an area accessible by members of the public like a park or the beach. It does not include your backyard at home.

Work and education
If you can work or study from home, you should continue to do so. If you can’t work from home, you can go to work.
Schools and universities remain open.
Offices can increase to 50% capacity or 20 people, whichever is greater.

Religion and ceremony
Religious gatherings and ceremonies are allowed with a maximum of 150 people per venue (indoors and outdoors), with no more than 75 indoors plus the number of people required for the service. A density limit of 1 person per 4 sqm applies indoors and outdoors.
You can have a wedding at a venue with up to 20 people. This limit includes the couple and two witnesses. The celebrant and a photographer are in addition to the cap. Weddings in private residences are not permitted unless compassionate grounds apply.
Funerals are allowed with up to 75 people. This limit doesn’t include babies under 12 months of age, or the people required to conduct the funeral. If a funeral is held at a private residence, private gathering restrictions apply.
There are no restrictions on those travelling from metropolitan Melbourne to regional Victoria for weddings and funerals.

Sport and recreation
Community sport can resume for all ages, including training and competition. Contact and non-contact sport outdoors can resume with the minimum amount of people needed to play the game.
Indoor physical recreation can resume, with group sizes of up to 10 per session indoors, plus the minimum number of people required to conduct the activity (such as a trainer running a gym class). No more than 50 patrons per venue indoors, a maximum capacity of 150 per venue (indoors and outdoors) and a density requirement of 1 person per 4 sqm applies.
For activities other than community sport (like exercise classes in the park) you can exercise outdoors with up to 20 people.

Retail and hospitality
Shops are open with a density requirement of 1 person per 4 sqm. While shopping you need to adhere to the patron limit per shop. This limit on patrons is in place to ensure everyone in the shop can keep 1.5 metres distance.
Beauty and personal care services are open. Workers must wear a face mask, but customers can remove their face mask for the duration of the service if the service cannot be provided with a face mask on.
Restaurants and cafes (under 100sqm) can open with up to 25 people before density requirements apply. A density requirement of 1 person per 4 sqm with a maximum of 150 people (indoors and outdoors) and no more than 75 indoors. Only seated service is permitted when dining in, to ensure everyone can keep 1.5 metres distance.

Entertainment
Community facilities including libraries can open with 150 per venue (indoors and outdoors) including up to 75 indoors, and a maximum group size of 10 (excluding infants under the age of 1 year) plus the minimum number of people required to conduct an activity or service.
Bars, karaoke facilities and nightclubs are open with seated service, a density requirement of 1 person per 4 sqm and no more than 50 people indoors.
Indoor seated venues such as cinemas can have 50% seated capacity and up to 75 people per venue and maximum group size of 10 people (excluding babies under 1 year). A density requirement of 1 person per 4 sqm applies to indoor non-seated areas.
Outdoor seated venues can have 50% seated capacity and up to 150 people per venue and maximum group size of 20 people (excluding babies under 1 year). A density requirement of 1 person per 4 sqm applies to outdoor non-seated areas.

Face masks
Face masks must be carried at all times and must be worn indoors. You do not need to wear a mask in your own home or if a lawful exception applies.
Face masks are recommended when outdoors when you cannot maintain 1.5 metres from others.

[Opaque]

Getting the vaccine and keeping up with safety procedures will hopefully keep those pesky Covid variants away.

[JoB]

Speaking of ongoing research, apparently some of the pharma companies are busy trying to come up with a flu+CoViD combo vaccine, rumour being that it promises to be more effective than vaccinating against those separately. If CoViD vaccination would really happen to turn out to need yearly booster shots, same as flu vaccination, we'd stand a chance that in the long run, We The Humans will deal with CoViD in essentially the same way as we did with the flu before - vaccination drives every year, always seeing a certain number of cases and deaths happening nonetheless, but.

FWIW, the WHO seems to be talking about repeat vaccination in yearly intervals for the vulnerable ones, and yearly or every two years for everyone else, now.

[wavewright62]

Some weeks back, NZ opened up a 'travel bubble' with Australia, but have had to close it a few times even in this short space of time.  The most recent event is that a Sydney (where there is an ongoing cluster of community transmission) man tested positive upon returning from a weekend in NZ.  He & his partner spent a whirlwind weekend in Wellington visiting friends and doing a whole slew of tourist activities, as you do.  Wellington has moved up a restriction level temporary, they stopped travel from NSW, and thousands of people went into 14 days isolation (including several of my coworkers in our Wgtn office). 
[NB I think that was the right response.]
Oddly enough, neither the partner, nor their friends, nor any of the thousands of people tested have come up positive for 'mate korona' (as it's now referred to here), even though the Delta variant is the culprit. This is a good thing, but suspicious.

[Jitter]

Finland has been doing very well lately, vaccination rates are growing swiftly and cases were declining. Until.

Until Finland made it to the European championship in football (soccer) for the first time ever. The games are played in different places (I haven’t kept up but Finland had games in Copenhagen and St Petersburg), some of which are not doing as well as we are.

So, somewhat understandably, a lot of Finnish fans traveled to St Petersburg to se the game. In theory the precautions were good, including ffp2 masks everywhere, empty seats between groups of friends and mandatory testing. In practice over a 100 cases have been found among the fans by today, with many hudreds being chased to be ordered into quarantine. The fans traveled by buses, and many of those buses have had at least someone who is infected. It is of course the delta variant.

I am not amused. Personally I’m fully vaccinated due to being in a high risk group, but it would have been nice to get some freedom. But apparently not.

Many restrictions have been eased, we never had an actual lockdown but even restaurants are open now etc. At least for a while.

[catbirds]

Got a covid test for the first time yesterday and it came back negative. That was fun I got the nose one and it felt weird.

At the moment, I think more restrictions are always better than none. When authorities give clearance for sporting events such as the European Championship, it's definitely worth noting who stands to gain from these decisions (that is, profit for certain industries and probably public image for a country). So while it sounds fun at the moment, it definitely won't add up later. I mean, it does add up to something, just not to your benefit.

Wave, Yastreb, and Jitter, I hope your countries handle the response to recent cases well and, if they don't, that at least you guys do your best to stay safe!

And more updates from where I am, my province is opening up hair salons and allowing indoor gatherings on the 30th I think. It's not like there are no more cases anymore. We have decent vaccination rates, but that's not enough to convince me to go out, nope! I think we're at 60% for the first dose and steadily increasing, but obviously I won't be going pub crawling or whatever anytime soon. Not that I've ever done that

(And I'm not particularly eager to see people celebrate a certain national holiday, in light of recent events.)

[Opaque]

It's a welcome sight to see other countries doing well. There have been a lot of vaccinations in the US but way too many people have chosen to only get one dose and now the Delta variant is creeping up on us. I'll bet some bad US variants will spring up too. Y'all be careful if you for some reason come over this way.

[Jitter]

We are also close to 60% on first dose and under 20% on the second, but since that includes most of the very vulnerable, i.e. the very old and the medical risk groups, we have been hopeful. My son’s Confirmation party should be in mid-July and we have been expedited to be able to have it with minimal problems (distance yes but no limits to number of people), but we’ll see now.

The main paper gives the rates as rolling number of cases in the last 14 days, and it was already going down so well that the current number was about 50% of the previous 14 days period, but now it’s nearly back. Does this make any sense? For today the last 14 days was 13th to 26th June, and the number of cases in that period was 1215. The previous 14 days was 30th May to 12th June at 1405 cases. So, we were going down fast but now we are more or less stuck.

[Vulpes]

Things are going well here (Newfoundland & Labrador). There are only 7 active cases in the entire province at the moment, and around 70% have at least one dose. Second doses are being sped up, by mixing; my SO got Pfizer for dose 1 and Moderna for dose 2, my appointment is for 10 July and I'll take whatever they offer - the two mRNA vaccines are virtually identical, they only differ in some details of preservatives, the mRNA part is the same. If things continue smoothly, it looks like they'll re-visit the masking guidelines in mid-September. Naturally, I just bought several pieces of fabric in different insect-themed patterns to make a variety of masks in a new, more comfortable design because I figured I'd be teaching in a mask... and now maybe it won't be necessary! But I might use a mask anyway, I'm not too thrilled about being in a poorly-ventilated room with a bunch of other people for an hour. Especially as those people are not required to be fully (or even partally) vaccinated. Some universities are requiring vaccination, ours is not.

The big unknowable is what will happen as we open up - travel is increasing, first within the "Atlantic Bubble" (NL, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island) then the rest of Canada. If the delta or some other more transmissible variant shows up and cases shoot up, the whole re-opening process will stall. So I'd better make those masks, regardless!

[JoB]

*snrk*


In other news, about the (EU-coordinated) Digital COVID Certificates in particular: Those who got their vaccination shots in drives organized by the state of NRW (and IIUC a couple other states of Germany opted for the same principle) were told that they would get theirs by mail, "before the end of June", "in time for summer [school] holidays at the latest" [which begin 05-Jul in NRW], no need to ask for it.

Also: Since 01-Jul, the vaccination centers run by the KVNO will hand them out immediately after the jab, but not yet back when I got mine. But they're also handing them out through the same online portal that serves to make the appointments in the first place.

Reality check: No snail mail so far, and the portal offers me a cert for my first jab (in early May), but not yet for the second (mid June).

... yay for having neither kids (AFAICT) nor plans to have an (out-of-country) vacation anytime soon, I guess.

Spoiler: ranting on • show

So, what's the backup plan if I needed one right away? "In the rare case¹ [...] you can, of course, have a digital certificate issued by a pharmacy or doctor's office." Wait a second, NRW ... the backup for any failure of yours to issue them in a timely manner is to have people use the national issuance system, with the professionals' standard fee paid out of federal coffers? Anyone besides me having a sudden interest in what the state's "failure" rate might turn out to be ... ?

¹ How exactly did they know beforehand that that'd be "potential but rare", I wonder ...

[Yastreb]

I was at the dentist's yesterday for a six-monthly checkup and a quick inspection of the dental surgery I had a while back; she was satisfied. Some things I noticed her do that weren't in evidence elsewhere (because of the proximity factor, I'd say) is to check my temperature with one of those thermo-pistols that read the forehead before I reached the surgery, followed by extra hand-sanitising, and putting my mask in a plastic bag for later. There was also a discussion about the ubiquity of QR codes and how, given the near-certainty of the pandemic lingering, it would be wise to have a phone with that capacity (mine isn't enabled for that).
Meanwhile, on the trams and out on the street as I passed through the CBD and elsewhere, I noticed that masks are being worn outdoors by the majority even though it's not compulsory, and there are very, very few non-compliers on trams and trains and in shops and supermarkets.