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Coronavirus

I’m not normally susceptible to conspiracy theories, but the media have been so negative (excuse the pun) about this whole pandemic. I get that bad news sells, but their behaviour has been a disgrace IMO. My phone pings multiple times a day with “updates” from BBC news about the shiny new variant which they are all thrilled about. I don’t need to know if one poor bloke in Scotland or Bristol has contracted the new variant. Just give me the facts and stop gaslighting us. I never got constant updates from the app every 5 minutes when the case numbers and deaths started to drop consistently, funny that.

I suppose it could be argued that they don’t send out updates to tell us that Russia and China aren’t at war, or that the Queen is still alive.
 
I suppose it could be argued that they don’t send out updates to tell us that Russia and China aren’t at war, or that the Queen is still alive.

Steven Pinker often talks about the media and how they could run with the headline about how a billion people haven risen out of poverty in the last 30 years, but there’s no Thursday in November when that’s true so they don’t run the headline. There’s a negativity bias in news coverage and covid is an example of that.
 
Steven Pinker often talks about the media and how they could run with the headline about how a billion people haven risen out of poverty in the last 30 years, but there’s no Thursday in November when that’s true so they don’t run the headline. There’s a negativity bias in news coverage and covid is an example of that.

If the media ran stories about a billion people rising out of poverty, the context necessary to make sense of that would be wildly beyond possible. It would also make a mockery of the fact that the income gap is growing enormously, in the process leaving more people in deeper poverty than ever in the last 60 years or so.

I agree that media is infatuated with fear-based stories and taglines…
 
I'm pretty clear there is enough immunity, vaccine and via infection, for us to now return to normal as long as we don't cripple the health system. We need that working. The zero Covid lot now are genuinely terrifying as it's impossible. We either have to live with it or we never leave our homes.

Exactly this.
 
Dutch are saying they found Omicron in samples taken on 19th November. Some days before flight with the other cases.
 
European stock markets have fallen after the boss of Moderna cast doubts on the effectiveness of vaccines against the new Omicron Covid variant.

Stephane Bancel told the Financial Times he thought there would be a "material drop" in vaccine efficacy.

The Covid variant was first detected in South Africa, and the symptoms have been mild so far.

But travel restrictions have been imposed as a precaution by places including the UK, the EU and the US.

Mr Bancel predicted that existing vaccines would be less effective in staving off Omicron, and that it would take months for drugs companies to update vaccines.

"There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level," he said.

UK's FTSE 100, Germany's Dax, and France's Cac 40 slipped more than 1.5% each, and the pan-European Stoxx 600 dropped 1.5% to hit its lowest levels in nearly seven weeks, before they all regained some ground.

Tokyo's Nikkei index closed down 1.6%, crude oil prices fell nearly 3%, and the Australian dollar hit a one-year low.

There was also a scramble for safe haven assets such as gold, German government bonds, and the yen.

Markets plunged on Friday after investors were rattled by the discovery of the the new variant, with the FTSE 100 index suffering its biggest drop in more than a year.

Stock markets have risen slightly since then, but are still far below last week's levels.

However, both the FTSE 100 and the FTSE 250, which is more focussed on UK firms, are still substantially higher than this time last year - up about 8.3% and 9.6% respectively.
 
Well that was a shambles
Had a booster appointment for 1.15pm, get there at 12.50pm with about 50 plus people in a queue in front of me
I went and asked the reception and said are these all appointments, nope walks in as well now so you will have to wait and it will be 90 minutes
Walked out and will re-book somewhere else tomorrow, ridiculous
 
Well that was a shambles
Had a booster appointment for 1.15pm, get there at 12.50pm with about 50 plus people in a queue in front of me
I went and asked the reception and said are these all appointments, nope walks in as well now so you will have to wait and it will be 90 minutes
Walked out and will re-book somewhere else tomorrow, ridiculous

Where do you live? I did mine and took my mum to do hers. Not including the 15 min wait afterwards. Only one was a wait of about 20 mins. The others was seen in about 5 mins.
 
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