Covid, Phase II. Commonsense is the order of the day. | Page 84 | Vital Football

Covid, Phase II. Commonsense is the order of the day.

Drone Delivery Canada Announces Update on Healthcare Projects
Drone Delivery Canada Announces Update on Healthcare Projects
Canada NewsWire
TORONTO, Jan. 20, 2021
TORONTO, Jan. 20, 2021 /CNW/ - Drone Delivery Canada Corp. (TSXV: FLT) (OTC: TAKOF) (Frankfurt: A2AMGZ or ABB.F) (the "Company" or "DDC") is pleased to provide an update on its healthcare related activities.
On January 20th, 2021 the Company presented at the Canadian Institute of Traffic and Transportation (CITT) webinar panel titled "Logistics of a COVID-19 Vaccine for Canada", alongside esteemed government and logistics industry panelists. DDC was the only drone delivery company on the panel and presented the benefits of drone delivery for pandemic response to remote First Nations communities, especially as related to vaccines.
The Company is in discussions with various Federal and Provincial Government agencies and Canadian logistics providers and is hopeful to commercially participate with its advanced, patented drone delivery as the vaccine distribution plans start to roll out across Canada, and potentially internationally.
The company's Beausoleil First Nation and Georgina Island First Nation pandemic-related projects were previously announced June 4th, 2020 and July 30th, 2020, respectively. They continue to be fully operational as expected with multiple flights daily. The proven Sparrow drone used in both projects is capable of delivering medical supplies, PPE, test kits and vaccines.
The Company has previously successfully demonstrated the ability to transport temperature-controlled medical supplies (University of Saskatchewanproject in 2020) and blood tests (Moose Cree First Nation pilot project in 2018) and is confident in its ability to effectively repeat this going forward.
"The healthcare industry is a market where we see significant potential future opportunity because it is a perfect fit for what our system does best – access to remote locations, time-critical deliveries, and limiting person-to-person contact. Since our cargo goes inside the drone, and we use a patented depot-to-depot DroneSpotTM network configuration, this results in a safe and secure solution, addressing unique needs for high-value and high-risk cargo, as is typical in healthcare, especially for vaccines," said Michael Zahra, President & CEO of DDC.
 
On the BBC news just now a report on the impact of Covid. A North London grave digger is filmed from above as he shovels the earth out of the grave dig. The camera then pans out showing the fresh soil infilled graves behind him, they stretch as far as the eye can see, rows and rows more like a military cemetery except the graves do not have marble or stone to dignify them, just mounds and mounds of soil.
I don't well up or get upset easy. Seeing this affected me.
 
Nick Real Deal said:
On the BBC news just now a report on the impact of Covid. A North London grave digger is filmed from above as he shovels the earth out of the grave dig. The camera then pans out showing the fresh soil infilled graves behind him, they stretch as far as the eye can see, rows and rows more like a military cemetery except the graves do not have marble or stone to dignify them, just mounds and mounds of soil.
I don't well up or get upset easy. Seeing this affected me.
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It would affect any sensible decent human being the same way, if I'd seen it, I'd probably have done the same.

Covid is a true horror on our doorstep.

China should apologise to the World for what it unleased, they cannot be trusted over anything.
 
A wedding party was broken up by Police last night at a Jewish school in London last night. 500 people were attending.

Maybe they heard about the 500 quid each scheme for catching Covid.
 
Nick Real Deal said:
A wedding party was broken up by Police last night at a Jewish school in London last night. 500 people were attending.
Maybe they heard about the 500 quid each scheme for catching Covid.
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Your first point Nick.....
YES THIS IS APPALLING NICK and all those should have been fined.
Your second point....
UNCALLED FOR COMMENT NICK .,.,I do not like the tone of this.....you are typecasting ..........the basis of anti semitism...I do not find it funny....
 
Greavswasthegreatest said:
Your first point Nick.....
YES THIS IS APPALLING NICK and all those should have been fined.
Your second point....
UNCALLED FOR COMMENT NICK .,.,I do not like the tone of this.....you are typecasting ..........the basis of anti semitism...I do not find it funny....
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A lady on the radio yesterday actually said the £ 500 would come in handy because she was skint. I knew this would happen, people using it as an earner, irrespective of their religions. Sorry if it offended you, it was a bit edgy I admit but without any malicious intent.
 
Nick Real Deal said:
A lady on the radio yesterday actually said the £ 500 would come in handy because she was skint. I knew this would happen, people using it as an earner, irrespective of their religions. Sorry if it offended you, it was a bit edgy I admit but without any malicious intent.
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okapology accepted.... just a yellow card for you then!
 
Nick Real Deal said:
A lady on the radio yesterday actually said the £ 500 would come in handy because she was skint. I knew this would happen, people using it as an earner, irrespective of their religions. Sorry if it offended you, it was a bit edgy I admit but without any malicious intent.
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But I also think it's a positive sensible move, there are many who having been found positive then don't have much in the way of debilitating symptoms, but can't afford a week off work, this at least would go some way to easing that dilemma for them.

As for the wedding, it's another product of stupid dogma and religious practices that the government should come down hard via prosecutions and big painful fines.

last week two of my brother's friends came down with covid, on Sunday one died and the other is in ICU barely holding on, so I'm angry with the anti-vaxers once again and angry at those who think the lockdown rules do not apply to them.

Here is the body of a text, I received back from the head of nursing at my local trust; I'd just texted her to see how she/they were coping

"thanks for thinking of me. I have to say it is horrendous, far worse this time as so many more people are dying once they reach ICU. Been doing two shifts a week in there to help out. Young overweight males seem to be the target. Have had the jab and so far have managed not to catch it. Hope you and xxx are ok. Trying to look forward to cheerier times, but none of us seem to be able to this time around, we're all exhausted and fearful of every day now, I simply don't know how much longer we can put up with so much death and devastated families, look after yourself. xx

I'm not afraid to say, as I know her so well, her words literally gutted me and made me almost weep, she's a tough lady and not one for emotion.
 
Spursex said:
But I also think it's a positive sensible move, there are many who having been found positive then don't have much in the way of debilitating symptoms, but can't afford a week off work, this at least would go some way to easing that dilemma for them.

As for the wedding, it's another product of stupid dogma and religious practices that the government should come down hard via prosecutions and big painful fines.

last week two of my brother's friends came down with covid, on Sunday one died and the other is in ICU barely holding on, so I'm angry with the anti-vaxers once again and angry at those who think the lockdown rules do not apply to them.

Here is the body of a text, I received back from the head of nursing at my local trust; I'd just texted her to see how she/they were coping

"thanks for thinking of me. I have to say it is horrendous, far worse this time as so many more people are dying once they reach ICU. Been doing two shifts a week in there to help out. Young overweight males seem to be the target. Have had the jab and so far have managed not to catch it. Hope you and xxx are ok. Trying to look forward to cheerier times, but none of us seem to be able to this time around, we're all exhausted and fearful of every day now, I simply don't know how much longer we can put up with so much death and devastated families, look after yourself. xx

I'm not afraid to say, as I know her so well, her words literally gutted me and made me almost weep, she's a tough lady and not one for emotion.
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Unsung heroes all of the staff...not sure about all the managers, what value can they bring ...practical help is what is vital not additional paperwork and procedures...even in peacetime ...shame successive governments never seem to recognise the value of the troops and pay them accordingly to their value to our society.:shake:
 
COVID-19: Is It the End for Convalescent Plasma?

Nicky Broyd

January 18, 2021


The RECOVERY trial has closed recruitment to its randomised study of convalescent plasma treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19.
The preliminary analysis on 1873 reported deaths among 10,406 randomised patients showed no significant difference in the primary endpoint of 28-day mortality (18% convalescent plasma vs. 18% usual care alone).
The trial's independent data monitoring committee held a routine meeting last Thursday and "saw no convincing evidence that further recruitment would provide conclusive proof of worthwhile mortality benefit either overall or in any pre-specified subgroup".

Follow-up is continuing before final results are published.
Last week, the international REMAP-CAP trial also reported convalescent plasma did not improve outcomes among ICU patients.
However, The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study suggesting convalescent plasma led to a 48% relative risk reduction in older patients developing severe disease.
'Resounding Result'
Joint Chief Investigator for RECOVERY, Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, said: "Whilst the overall result is negative, we need to await the full results before we can understand whether convalescent plasma has any role in particular patient subgroups."
Joint Chief Investigator, Martin Landray, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, added: "Once again, the RECOVERY trial is demonstrating the value of large randomised trials to properly assess the role of potential treatments. At this very challenging time, we are incredibly grateful to the hard work of NHS staff and huge contribution made by patients across the whole country."
Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine, Imperial College London, commented via the Science Media Centre: "The RECOVERY trial has again delivered a resounding result."
He pointed out how RECOVERY's findings differed from the NEJM study:
"The different outcomes of these studies shows the vital importance of administering the appropriate treatment at the right time and of not giving unproven treatments, however rational they may seem."

Last week, Imperial's Professor Anthony Gordon, chief investigator for REMAP-CAP, said the study had been able to provide important evidence about which patients might benefit from convalescent plasma: "Although it is disappointing that all critically ill patients don’t appear to gain any benefit, this is still vitally important to know. Convalescent plasma is a precious resource, and we can now continue to focus on identifying exactly which patients might benefit the most from treatment – maybe people earlier in their illness or those with weak immune systems."

NHSBT
Plasma was collected from COVID-19 recovered volunteers by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT).

NHSBT CMO, Dr Gail Miflin, said the preliminary RECOVERY results were "disappointing" but praised the donors: "We are enormously grateful to the tens of thousands of people who have given their time and donated plasma and to the hundreds of colleagues who have worked incredibly hard over many months. We can be incredibly proud of what we have achieved together. NHSBT has helped deliver the largest ever randomised control trial of convalescent plasma. This world leading trial could only be completed because of the immense professionalism, expertise and hard work of NHSBT colleagues and partners."



One of the donors, journalist Mark Sandell, commented on Facebook: "I was due to do my 13th convalescent plasma donation on Monday but it's been cancelled because, unfortunately, it doesn't actually help hospital patients with COVID. Still, I got a nice badge when I got to 10; you can never have too many orange Club biscuits, and it got me out of the house during lockdown."
 
The amount of friends / aquaintances/ friends I know recently who have gone into hospital for treatment of one thing and another, catch Covid and don't come out again is awful and increasing weekly.......the moral of the story is KEEP AWAY FROM HOSPITALS they will be the death of you!
 
Greavswasthegreatest said:
The amount of friends / aquaintances/ friends I know recently who have gone into hospital for treatment of one thing and another, catch Covid and don't come out again is awful and increasing weekly.......the moral of the story is KEEP AWAY FROM HOSPITALS they will be the death of you!
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If you are in hospital with Covid , I guess it means you have it bad. It was a 33% death rate in hospital, that is now down to 25% but with 35,000 in hospital, you do the maths !!
Today's 100,000 figure was a sombre realisation of the severity of out situation in the UK and the speed in which it has moved to that from the 60,000 level is concerning.
 
Nick the other side of it is going into hospital for any op and then catching Covid as the place is rife with the virus...no ones fault, just inevitablel
 
Nick by way of example, in the last week one lady in the street went in for heart trouble and has died of Covid and another gentleman in the street went in to continue chemo and contracted Covid and will not last a day or so now. They tested negative before going in. So much for isolation of non covid patients. The hospitals try so so hard to isolate covid from others but it is nigh on impossible ...
 
Covid deaths: 'Hard to compute sorrow' of 100,000 milestone - PM

More than 100,000 people have died with Covid-19 in the UK, after 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the daily figures.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he took "full responsibility" for the government's actions, saying: "We truly did everything we could."
"I'm deeply sorry for every life lost," he said.

A total of 100,162 deaths have been recorded in the UK, the first European nation to pass the landmark.
Earlier, figures from the ONS, which are based on death certificates, showed there had been nearly 104,000 deaths since the pandemic began.
The government's daily figures rely on positive tests and are slightly lower.



Why is the UK's death toll so bad?
Kuenssberg: Grim milestone in an abnormal year
UK deaths likely to come down slowly, Whitty warns

Mr Johnson told Tuesday's Downing Street news conference that it was "hard to compute the sorrow contained in this grim statistic".
He gave his "deepest condolences" to those who had lost loved ones, including "fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and the many grandparents who've been taken".

The UK is the fifth country to pass 100,000 deaths, coming after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.

A surge in cases in recent weeks - driven in part by a new, fast-spreading variant of the virus - has left the UK with one of the highest coronavirus death rates globally.

A further 20,089 coronavirus cases were recorded on Tuesday, continuing a downward trend in the number of UK cases seen in recent days. The number of people in hospital remains high, as do the UK's daily death figures.
Mr Johnson said the coronavirus infection rate remained "pretty forbiddingly high" despite lockdown restrictions which have been in place in England since 5 January.

Under the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons - including for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Mr Johnson said he would set out more detail in "the next few days and weeks" about "when and how we want to get things open again".

It's a terrible milestone - and one that represents unimaginable loss.
Most of the deaths have come in two waves - the sharp, sudden surge in the spring followed by a slow and sustained rise throughout autumn and winter.
Mistakes have been made - the delay locking down back in March is one that is often cited even by the government's own advisers.
The UK, like much of Europe, was also woefully underprepared with limited testing and contact tracing systems.

But the ageing population, high rates of obesity, the fact the UK is a global hub and its inter-connectedness with Europe are also factors that meant we were tragically never going to escape lightly once the virus got a foothold.
Speaking alongside the prime minister, Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, described it as a "very sad day".

He said the number of people dying "will come down relatively slowly over the next two weeks - and will probably remain flat for a while now".
Prof Whitty added the new coronavirus variant had changed the UK's situation "very substantially" with infection rates "just about holding" due to lockdown restrictions.

But he said the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK "has been coming down" and the number of people in hospital with Covid has "flattened off" - including in London, the South East and East of England.
However, there were "some areas" where the hospital figures were "still not convincingly reducing", he said.

NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said there had been "continuing improvements in hospital treatment for severely sick coronavirus patients".
He said he expected more treatments within the next six to 18 months, adding: "We can see a world in which coronavirus may be more treatable, but for now, it's a combination of reducing infections and getting vaccinations done."
One day there will be a public inquiry - maybe several - seeking to understand why so many died.

Last summer, back when the government was subsidising people to eat out at restaurants, Boris Johnson said there would be an independent inquiry into the government's handling of Covid, but gave no details or dates.
He still hasn't, despite a recent call from bereaved families, trade unions and charities for lessons to be learnt now.

The gravest public health crisis for a century would have tested any government.
But as the pandemic has worsened, the criticisms and questions have mounted - about the timing of lockdowns, the rollout of test and trace and the failure to protect care homes last spring.

There is now pressure on Boris Johnson from some Tory MPs to ease restrictions as soon as the most vulnerable are vaccinated.

But this evening a sombre prime minister said the government would first do everything it could to minimise further loss of life.

Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said it was a "sobering moment in the pandemic", saying: "Each death is a person who was someone's family member and friend."

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was a "national tragedy" to have reached 100,000 deaths.

The government had been "behind the curve at every stage" of the pandemic and had not learnt lessons over the summer, he added.

The epidemiologist whose modelling in part prompted the UK's first national lockdown said more action in the autumn of last year could have saved lives.
Prof Neil Ferguson told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: "Had we acted both earlier and with greater stringency back in September when we first saw case numbers going up, and had a policy of keeping case numbers at a reasonably low levels, then I think a lot of the deaths we've seen, not all by any means, but a lot of the deaths we've seen in the last four or five months, could have been avoided."

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the death toll was "heartbreaking" and warned there was a "tough period ahead".

"The vaccine offers the way out, but we cannot let up now," he added.
More than 6.8 million people in the UK have had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest figures.
 
French pharma giant Sanofi to produce rivals’ Covid vaccines

new
Charles Bremner, Paris
Wednesday January 27 2021, 12.00pm, The Times
Global politics
Coronavirus
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A technician prepares tanks for manufacturing vaccines at Sanofi's distribution centre in Val-de-Reuil, northwest France
JOEL SAGET/GETTY IMAGES


Embarrassment in France over its failures in the race for a coronavirus vaccine has deepened after the national pharmaceutical giant said that it would produce 125 million doses of its rivals Pfizer and Biontech’s product.
Sanofi’s facilities in Frankfurt will be used by Biontech, which is based in Germany, this summer after the French company failed to develop a working treatment quickly and came under pressure from President Macron to step in to relieve the vaccine shortage in Europe.
Sanofi said that its own version would not be ready until the end of the year. Dismay over this was compounded on Monday when the Pasteur Institute, the renowned Paris research centre, announced that it was abandoning research on its most promising prospect.
Politicians and commentators are deploring the absence of France, the land of the vaccine pioneer Louis Pasteur and home of multiple medical breakthroughs, from the vanguard of nations leading the immunisation science against Covid-19.

“It’s a sign of the decline of the country and this decline is unacceptable,” François Bayrou, a close ally of Mr Macron and commissioner for long-term state planning, said yesterday.

Mr Bayrou, head of the Mo-Dem party, blamed a drain of French scientists and executives attracted by more money and opportunity for research in the United States and elsewhere in Europe.
He mentioned Stéphane Bancel, the French chief of Moderna, the US company whose vaccine was the second to be approved for use in the country. “It’s not acceptable that our best researchers, the most brilliant of our researchers, are sucked up by the American system,” Mr Bayrou said.
Pascal Soriot, the head of Astrazeneca, the Swedish-British firm that has also produced a vaccine, is French as well.
France’s vaccine failures are feeding a view, popular for the past two decades, that the country is in steady economic and social decline compared with rival states. As a country that prides itself on the cultivation of national industrial champions, France would normally expect to be in the front of the field.



Left-wing politicians blamed the pro-market policies of Mr Macron and his predecessors. Ségolène Royal, a socialist former presidential candidate, said “liberal ideology” was at fault for reductions in public funding for vaccine research. Bastien Lachaud, an MP for the radical left-wing Unbowed France party, tweeted: “No vaccine in the homeland of Pasteur. What a symbol. That’s where the impoverishment of publicly funded research leads us.”
The conservative Republicans party said “this scientific backwardness is a slap in the face” for France.
Sanofi, the last surviving French-owned pharmaceuticals group and headed by a Briton, has been fiercely criticised in France, first for saying last year that the US would be its first vaccine customer and then for laying off 1,700 staff.
The Pasteur Institute and Sanofi embarked on approaches to immunisation that differed from the “messenger RNA” method that was successfully adopted by Biontech and Moderna. The Pasteur Institute, working with the US group Merck, bet on adapting a measles vaccine. Sanofi, which is working with Glaxosmithkline of Britain, said in December that its approach of adapting a flu vaccine had not proved effective enough.
Announcing that Sanofi would make its factory in Germany available to produce its competitor’s product, Paul Hudson, the firm’s chief executive, said: “We are very conscious that the earlier vaccine doses are available, the more lives can potentially be saved.”
 
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but surely as an island we could have followed Australia and New Zealand and locked it all down last year .....100k deaths is beyond belief!
 
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