It has been reported that “almost half” of the warships in HMS Queen Elizabeth’s Carrier Strike Group have been hit by positive COVID-19 cases.

The Sun, which broke the story first, stated that the sailors became infected when they were on a run ashore at Limassol in Cyprus.

A Royal Navy spokesman said in a statement:

“As part of routine testing, a small number of crew from the Carrier Strike Group have tested positive for Covid-19. All personnel deployed in the UK CSG have received both doses of the Covid vaccine and there are a number of mitigation measures on board including masks, social distancing and a track and trace system. The Carrier Strike Group will continue to deliver their operational tasks and there are no effects on the deployment.”

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said during a press briefing on Tuesday:

“Our crew are double vaccinated so you’ll be glad to know there is no serious effects on any of the crew and we will manage it. I will offer support to the captain to make the decision – what is right for his ship. I will fully support whatever decision he makes but this is not like the early days of the problems with COVID. It is understood, we know how to deal with it.”

What is the UK Carrier Strike Group doing?

HMS Queen Elizabeth is the deployed flag ship for Carrier Strike Group 21 (CSG21), a deployment that will see the ship and her escorts sail to the Asia-Pacific and back. The Carrier Strike Group includes ships from the United States Navy, the Dutch Navy, and Marines from the US Marine Corps as well as air assets from 617 Sqn, 820 NAS, 815 NAS and 845 NAS.

The Carrier Strike Group.

Not pictured above is the Astute class submarine sailing with the group.

CSG21 will see the carrier along with her Strike Group work with over 40 countries from around the world. The Strike Group will operate and exercise with other countries Navies and Air Forces during the 7 month deployment.

Recently, the Strike Group joined coalition operations in the Eastern Mediterranean; an historic milestone as British and American F-35B strike fighters flew the first operational missions from a Queen Elizabeth-class carrier, as they stood ready to strike at Daesh.

Commodore Steve Moorhouse, Commander United Kingdom Carrier Strike Group, said:

“The Carrier Strike Group’s period working with our NATO partners in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Seas offers unmistakable proof that the United Kingdom’s most important overseas defence commitment remains the security of the Euro-Atlantic region. While HMS Queen Elizabeth launched counter-Daesh missions over Iraq and Syria from the Eastern Mediterranean, HMS Defender and HNLMS Evertsen were conducting concurrent operations 1600 miles away in the Black Sea – true strategic reach.

Meanwhile, our programme of defence engagement involved a huge amount of work in support of British Embassies and High Commissions, but from Alicante to Alexandria and Bar to Batumi, the message was the same: Britain’s friends and allies are delighted to see the Royal Navy back in town. Now we head east, towards the rising economies of the Indo-Pacific. From the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Malacca, CSG21 offers unprecedented influence and engagement in support of Global Britain.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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75 COMMENTS

  1. It used to be that after a run ashore the biggest worry was having caught Gonz and then start squeezing..

    No supprise that they got COVID. If your jabbed up (I had my third 2 weeks ago) you need to start living with it not running away from it.

    • My first posting was to 24 field sqn RE based at Kitchener Bks Chatham (just across the road from one of the gates to the naval base) The lads who caught something nasty were sent by the med centre at Brompton (which actually sat above the NB) to if i remember correctly the School of Tropical medicine and those who had the pleasure of visiting would regale us younger guys to tales of the umbellar

  2. Concerning news, but it’s hardly surprising given the number of port visits made by ships from the group.

    Unfortunately (in slightly unrelated news), a sailor from HMS Kent has passed away. I’d just like to take the time to say that my thoughts are with their family, friends and shipmates. Rest easy, shipmate.

    • Yes, the really sad news was from Kent.

      I just hope it leads to a quick & quiet think about how support and welfare can be improved on and off board. Real improvements not just another manual.

      The real fighting assets of a navy are the people.

      • Perhaps the £200M yacht could be a mental health R&R vessel and Not for some political ego trip. We still have 1000s of serving and ex members of the forces struggling with their mental health and no ‘REAL’ plan from the MOD other than some nice PR statements.
        IMO it’s time for a public enquiry into the consistent failures to support service personnel’s mental health, with a committee of mental health professionals and recovering serving/veterans on the bench. Call all previous Defence Secretary’s and chiefs of staff back to 2000 to explain themselves and perhaps the current incumbents will actually do something.

        Agree with Gunbuster though get the kit sold and his personal bits home so the crew can move on. Also hope somebody is properly supporting the poor lad/lass who found him.

        • When I ran my last company before I retired, we used to sponsor (cover the costs of) one of the flotilla of sailing boats ran by the RAF out of Portsmouth, although it was available as a Joint asset. Main purpose was to give boys and girls suffering from stress and mental overload an escape valve as part of a programme of rehabilitation. These services are available but not enough

    • Mess deck kit sale time.
      Pair of boots? quid
      Trousers 20 quid

      Money goes to the family. An old tradition to sell a dead crew members kit and to pass the money to the family. Sounds cold and callous but it closes out the issue in the mess deck and the wider ship.

      I once paid 40 quid for a belt…

      • One of the biggest arguments I ever saw was over who was paying a lads beer bill off after he unfortunately passed

        Again, all money went to the family

      • We did the same, auction time, the lads would pay well over the odds for kit, knowing the true meaning behind it.

  3. It just shows you how reports can be different , The Suns says that half the Carrier group contracted COVID and the Navy states that it is only a small number.

    • A small number in half the ships. But I think most sun readers will be more interested in Katie Price’s liposuction.

  4. As is usual a risk assessment has been carried out. It was going to happen and protocols are in place for such an event like this.

  5. It’s honing to happen, I’m sure SOPs were in place to deal with this, as long as all recover after a shitty few days feeling ill (mine felt like a massive hangover) then all will be well!

  6. Sadly inevitable with shore visits and allowing people on the ship when in ports.

    Wonder if they have been making crew do PCR tests when coming back on board?

    • Wont make any difference as it can take days for the results and up to 1 days to develop symptoms.

      just got to live with it and fight with it if required.

    • PCR tests are a bit pointless to be hones for screening as they take ages and need labs.

      lateral flow tests are easier but useless. They have undertaken a recall in the states.

      It’s efficacy for detecting covid is only around 80% and that drops lower if an untrained individual does the swab ( to around 60%). It also only really defects virus close to peak viral load, so the individual is going t be infectious before a PCR test goes ping.

      All in all a wasted fiver per test.

    • Hi Heidfirst,

      I saw that as well. Let’s hope it is something relatively easily fixed. Gas Turbines do fail. I was watching a programme about HMS Illustrious on her last deployment. She was due to join the USN for exercises when one of her turbines failed.

      The weather was unusually calm for the North Atlantic. So the ship stopped in the middle of the ocean so that the engineers could swap out the broken turbine and put in the spare that the ship apparently carried around with her..! It took about 24hours if I remember rightly.

      Hopefully it will be something similar, but obviously a destroyer doesn’t carry a spare turbine around the world, so additional people and a replacement turbine would need to be flown out. Of course, it could be something else requiring the ship to return home to be docked…

      Fingers crossed.

      Cheers CR

    • Engine failure after a brief encounter with Russia in the hot summertime Black Sea where she was running at over 30knts.

      I am losing confidence that the Type 45 is suitable for places like the South China Sea.

  8. This is actually a bit worrying, my understanding is they have 100 cases on the Queen Elizabeth. Not sure what the total present crew on the ship is but that’s a young fully vaccinated population ( vaccines work best on the young, worst on the old). If there are 1000 crew and they have 100 cases at present ( and the outbreak will still be browning) that means the vaccine efficacy in regards to preventing covid is below 90% efficacy. That’s very bad news from a public health point of view.

    Remember, hospitalisation rates are looking to be reduced by 80-95% if you have bee vaccinated but 5% of millions is a lot of people in hospital beds ( when we always fill our hospitals to the brim even before covid).

    The latest research papers are that long covid rates are at about 10% of cases, the impact of this ranges from 3 months of not being able to work to a lifetime of oxygen dependency and a lifetime of debilitating chronic conditions ( I’ve seen these cases).

    lastly just remember this virus is become better at spreading (natural RO has moved from about 2.5 to something like 8). Mutations that are more deadly are a function. Of generation and size of each generation. A virus I’ll go through a generation evert 3 days, that’s 1000 generations in a year ( about 25,000 years of human evolution). As for size of generation each single infected human will hold around 10,000,000,000 ( with variance of the equivalence of an extra 0, so 10 to the power of 9 or 10. So each person holds more covid 10 viruses that the population of the world and they create a new generation every three days, any virus created could be the one that eats past the vaccine, ups the R0 or increases the case mortality rate.

    learning to live with the virus is going to mean changing how we live, that is basic public health in the face of a deadly disease, no matter what politicians of all types tell you. It may take us a few more years and millions of dead to actual get to that point of realisation, but it took us a while to realises that managing human waste away from drinking water and putting chlorine in drinking water was a good idea and millions dying of dysentery was a bit shit ( and we still manage to let have a million children a year die from poor quality drinking water) .

    • The point is you can catch it but it does not hospitalise you.

      But why do you think 90% is a problem. My understanding is that 90% it pretty good. And in an enclosed space like a working ship, this must be difficult.

      • Hi Trevor, 90% is still a public health nightmare, and a vaccination programme that does not significantly reduce case rates is unfortunately utter shit from a long term public health point of view, they don’t in normal times get licensed if you can still catch and spread the disease. As the whole point of vaccination programmes is to suppress case numbers/prevalence. If covid was not one of the most difficult to manage diseases we have come across the vaccines would never have been licensed with the big holes in efficacy ( I’m not saying don’t take the vaccine, please have it and the booster and the booster after that………if your drowning grab the rubber ring, don’t wait for the search and rescue rotor)

        • I’ve been double jabbed and the efficiency of the jab has been seen to be effective everywhere and there is generally high protection for transmitting it.

          There will be booster in the autumn.

          I generally get a flu jab every year.

          I do not see where you get a health nightmare.

          • Thats fine, we can have the conversation on costs to our population and society in a couple of years, I would very much like your version of the truth to right ( I honestly do Because mines a bit horrible and puts me in a right downer about having to work 70 hour weeks all summer).

    • It doesn’t prevent you getting covid. It stops the disease putting you in hospital with severe symptoms where you need an ICU.
      Lots of vaccinated people here with Covid. Most don’t even show symptoms or know they have it and only find out through random testing at work.

      Had my 5th random test yesterday, results back in 8 hours and where negative.
      Which means I can Brunch on Friday!

        • David,
          I don’t know about the Navy, but in the army a large number of camps I have lived in would operate Brunch over the weekend, allowing for blokes who had been on the lash to not be confined to strict workday meal timings. It also allowed for only having 1 chef on duty instead of the usual cohort

          • Spot on, always thought the weekend brunch was a rather good idea, and suited both the lads and the Army…..very civilised.

        • Bahrain Brunches on Fridays are the stuff of legend. All you can eat and drink in 4 hours… Then you start the after party…

      • Hi gun, the whole issue with the low levels of protection around the vaccinations programme not preventing the disease is one of the key risks.

        In normal times we would not take forward a vaccinations programme that did not prevent the disease from occurring, as one of the key balances of risk around vaccinations programmes towards do it is that is suppresses the incidents of the disease.

        The main reason for this is need to suppress incidents/ case rates is around how vaccination programmes work and how a disease with high prevalence interacts with a population. The key weakness of any vaccine programmes are where it’s not successful in suppressing incidents/cases numbers include:

        1) You can never vaccinate the whole population.So you will always have those at risk. When you look a individuals 10% not vaccinated seems small, when you take public health of a nation like he UK that’s 7 million problems.

        2) The older you get the less well vaccinations work. so you can jab all the vaccines in world into your older populations arms, legs and buttocks. But a fair chunk of them will be shuffled of by the diseases you vaccinate them against if there is a high prevalence of the disease ( the reason we give the flu vaccine to our school age kids every year is not to protect them but to reduce prevalence of the disease to help stop I killing so many older people).

        3) Reduced immune response over time. This is a particular kicker as there is a double interaction between Human immune response to corona viruses and RNA messenger vaccination Tec. The first issue is that we know from all the other circulating human corona viruses, there are actually 7 different human corona viruses, 4 of which cause the common cold, and you catch each of these year after year with no prolonged immunity, most research points to immunity lasting 6-12 months post infection, covid 19 seems to work in the same way as the others. The other big problem is a known potential weakness in RNA messenger vaccines that had previously held them back from being licensed and that is the immunity from these vaccines does not last. There was a big trial around a Hep B RNA messenger vaccination a couple of years ago and it never got to licensing because immunity did not last beyond 6 months. We are starting to see the effects of this, as a recent study from Israel has found the efficacy of vaccination protection for those fully vaccinated 6 months ago has dropped to 60%ish.

        4) This is the most brutal, Covid 19 is better at finding ways to infect us and replicate than we are at finding ways to stop it from replicating ( The mathematics of virtual evolution means this particular beast is going to replicate a round our vaccination programmes. The more it changes and has the opportunity to change the more chance it becomes more deadly (one of its close siblings has around has a case fatality rate of something around 30-40%). There is nothing to stop a random change in covid 19 driven by evolution and case rates being far more fatal ( the premises that as a Disease becomes more mature it becomes less deadly is false from an evolutionary pressure point of view, it only needs the host to be alive and spreading the virus for a few days, killing the host later in no way impacts on the virus).

        The last point to consider around letting case rates rip: as the vaccination does not work well at preventing disease we don’t know if it will prevent long covid. If your being brutal, long covid is actually the greater long term public health issue, it’s an unpleasant truth but dead people take no resource, a young person given a long term condition by a virus in there 20s will cost society millions over their life ( it’s a public health version of why a mine that blows an enemy’s foot off is a more effective weapon than a mine that kills).

          • Hi Trevor it’s fine that you don’t agree with my version of the truth, but just so you are aware I have three healthcare related degrees that are focused on clinical practice as well as public health and risk management. I have decades of experience of managing healthcare and public health risks, you can disagree with me, as all risks in public health are a balance of different risks and drivers ( I can do something to try and saves you that ends up harming you in a different way) . But I do know exactly what I’m talking about.

          • And I dont accept your prognosis. If you are trying to say that 90% vaccination and, as we see further boosters, is a health nightmare then I am surprised we are all not already dead from all kind of diseases.

          • Hi Trevor in public health you have to get beyond personal risk and understand the tyranny of numbers.

            just as an example if you have a population of 50million and of that you manage to vaccinate 50% of your population that’s 25 million vaccinated and 25 million unprotected individuals. If we say your vaccination is 90% efficacious ( they are not by the way as there are lots of factors that degrade efficacy) you have a further 2.5 million people at risk of catching the disease. So that’s 27.5 million people….with a disease that has a natural R0 of somewhere around 8 ( flu has an R0 of 1.5, covid 19 is very infectious) your going to end up with an exponential growth in cases. We don’t know how high the present case rate will get for wave 3 but modelling is looking north of 100,000 cases per day ( We are on 42k today, I’m betting doubling in 10 days so some three weeks would see 160-170,000 cases a day, tyranny of numbers in population health is brutal)

            let’s just talk immediate issues: Say we have shifted the hospitalisation rate Down by 75% and we only hit 100,000 cases a day. That is still a hospitalisation rate of 2500 cases of respiratory admissions per day. That’s filling up 5 district general hospitals every day with nothing but respiratory cases, if we have an average length of stay of 2 weeks thats 37500 hospital beds filled for the timeframe of the peak and recovery period, or around 72 district general hospitals filled with respiratory patients. That’s effectively 25-30% of NHS capacity. As the NHS only has a reserve capacity of around 8% it means we would have to kick out about 30,000 elective patients every day for that time frame of the wave say we sustained that for 30 days that’s 900,000 extra cases in the waiting lists ( after wave 1 and 2 the nhs will be trying to reduce its elective surgery backlog for five year, wave three will be adding a few extra years).

            longer term studies have shown that between 10-13% of all covid cases get long covid at a 100,000 cases per day that’s 13,000 more people every day who will need long term care in the community ranging from 3 months therapy support to a lifetime of long term conditions, latest reaserch put the number of patients in the U.K. with long cover at just shy of 1 million, that just there is a public health disaster all on its own. At Present there are no studies showing any impact on long covid from vaccinations ( but that may come) .

            At the same time as all this we will be seeing large numbers of healthcare works having to self isolate with covid ( we are now seeing increased cases within our double vaccinated healthcare workforce ( that’s another thing keeping me up as I have to manage risks around that particular problem for a population of 900,000 patients).

            All the while evidence is that after 6 month’s efficacy of the vaccines is actually dropping to around 60% ( latest bit of research from Israel, as they started mass vaccination first)

            Your so lucky that you just have to have a third jab and cannot fathom the impact of delivering 50 million doses of vaccine every year on a primary care system that was failing due to lack of clinical staff before the pandemic. most gp practices will take a good free year of work to get all their monitoring of high risk medications and reviews of all their long term condition patients sorted, but they can’t do that while having to vaccinate 50 million adults every year, treat all the respiratory disease and have their staff self isolating.

            So we actually have a number of public health disasters all going on at once: the impact and stress on the NHS acute hospitals of the first two waves equates to one of the worst public health disasters we have seen in our lifetime all on its own, then the almost million cases of long covid and the Primary Care crisis and that’s before all the wave one and two covid deaths, coming impact of wave three, years of booster programmes every year and future waves as we loss efficacy of our vaccines or the virus shifts.

            i cannot even begin to tell you the cost in lives, shattered health, money and misery the world is going to suffer over the rest of my lifetime because of this one virus.

            As I said you can look at your personal risk and feel OK, my job and expertise is to look beyond that and the truth is like many of my colleagues the horror of it has driven me ( along with many of my colleagues) to require therapy just to to keep working ( and I’m as hard as they come, I’ve seem more death, hurt and pain than most people can imagine).

          • On that basis how do you propose a way out then? Should we stay in lockdown for six months, a year, five years?

          • Look at Flu, a vaccine has never been created to eradicate that regardless of how many decades of trials to do so.

            Sadly it looks like Covid is heading down the same path. If the flu vaccine is approved for use when it doesnt prevent it then the covid vaccine has been done on the same basis.

          • Simon unfortunately the whole idea of a way out is a false premise, it’s a bit of a function of the the 21C mentality which in some ways is very positive but in other ways can cause problems especially when we come face an issue that is not something we have power over.

            The very simple truth is there is no way out of covid and in this way we have to take the lesson that king Canute gave to his court, human beings are not all powerful and when the tide comes in you don’t stand there and tell it to stop…you move or drown.

            It is unfortunately the tide and infectious diseases like covid are about the same, we either change what we do and how we live or we will drown (or in this case suffer an ongoing public health tragedy).

            As for what I would be looking at would very much depend on where we are but:

            Restructure NHS
            1) signification increase in surge capacity around respiratory diseases, as a system the NHS is designed on a lean Acute bed model, we will need add about a 20,000 respiratory medical beds into the system, these would ensure we do not loss elective care capacity over winter or during a summer wave.
            2) Review of the elective care backlog, developing a capability to manage the backlog created by waves 1-? safely over no more a two year period. Ensure there are safety checks and assessments on patients waiting over 18 weeks for surgery.
            3) creation of capacity to manage long covid, we have coming up on a million cases and no long term plan to create a service that can rehabilitate as many as possible.
            4) creation of a national vaccination service, the NHS does not have the capacity to vaccinate every adult every year, we struggled with our pre covid vaccination programmes every year. The covid vaccination programmes have been staffed by stripping staff from front line services as well as people working over hours, I have had people in my team working their 5 days a week then spending 2 full days in vaccine clinics, this cannot be sustained and it’s taken to long, even if it’s a miracle pulled off by the NHS . So we need a vaccination service to ensure can give every member of the population a covid booster with a couple of months at most of a new variant or loss of efficacy due to time.
            5) facilities, we had a learning document that’s now 20 years old that told us the NHS Bed spaces were to small and was a significant risk around infection prevention control, we need bigger bed spaces with less beds in each ward or bay ( some counties have gone all price rooms, but this has its own risks around isolation and missing critically ill people. Trouble is see my other point about needing more beds…..we have a problem.

            local government

            1) develop public health capability and powere.We have effectively reduced public health to a straw man in this county and it failed utterly in the first two waves of the pandemic. We need very robust local public health teams that can react immediately to manage local outbreaks, with powers to put in place local health protection, like a local lock down. This would be a major way to prevent a wider national epidemic and national lock downs.
            2) Review our model of care for the frail and elderly, nursing homes have been shown to be at very high risk we need to create social care models that protect the elderly but still allow them to live within society ( at present we have in prisoned our care and nursing home populations for 18 months).

            Basic Public Health:
            we need to up our game on basic prevention so:
            1) Mask wear should not be optional in enclosed public spaces or busy town centre. The whole free choice thing is bollox we have alway legislated for major public health changes, from laws on water quality, to serving alcohol, drug taking smoking and speeding….masks are no different, if it’s about Harming or killing another person with your actions free choice is always managed by legislation.
            2) hand washing and health protection. As a health profession I’m actual taught how to wash my hands and how to prevent the spreed of disease and I’m updated every year to make sure I don’t slack off..Covid means we need to ensure every member of the public understand how virus spread and how to protect themselves and others, you can’t have “personal responsibility” if you have no idea what your talking about or the skills to enact that personal responsible. This education will take years and needs to start in schools.

            Transport/work:
            This is a high risk area and needs thought. we cannot in a world with Covid cram people on trains and busses as we did before so:

            1) work with employers to stagger start and finish times
            2) encouragement of working from home and more local offices
            3) no more standing room only, if you have a person standing over lots of people it’s a bad thing.
            4) ventilation, air conditioning and air exchange. We need to change the standards required around air quality and air exchange in buildings to make them safer
            5) more space at work…..don’t crowed them in.

            leisure and travel
            1) we always new the moderm world was at very high risk of a pandemic, it’s been a 25 ( highest catastrophic risk) on the national risk register for well over 15 years. Part of this is about unrestricted international travel. The Black Death traveled across the europe at around 5 miles per day. Covid traveled across the globe at the speed of a jet airliner. We need to really think about that.
            2)very crowded places, like nigh clubs etc are going to be a real problem, what can we put in place to manage that risk without banning them ( which will not work at all).

            Waves will come:
            waves of covid 19 will now be a part of our lives, living with a wave is not ignoring a wave:
            1) you can’t ignore a wave because you want to, we need greater discipline in how when and why we lock down the county when a local outbreak moves to an epidemic. What that lock Down looks like and what people can expect…no more making it up as we go along we have now had three waves to get this right.
            2) how to come out of lockdown safely, again making it up was fine for wave one but not for wave three. We need fixed agreed rules on the how and the then we scale back on lockdowns during a wave.

            There a lot more, I could give you a decade long plan to manage how we live with covid and at some point that’s what will need to happen, it’s here and like the sea the waves will come, drown or prepare and adapt our choice.

          • I have to say I find unlikely that much of that will ever happen. Stumping up the money needs either tax rises or spending cuts else wereboth will be unpopular. Also trying to limit travel will be very unpopular as will trying to get everyone to ware masks in certain areas unless you have the police on the streets enforcing it and then you are going to be a legal nightmare. Also quite frankly the effect of lock downs on peoples metal health has not been good, I cant see there being much support for a constant cycle of lock downs local or not.

          • Hi Simon, unfortunately it’s not going to be about what’s popular or not. What we would want or like is utterly irrelevant, this is nature not politics and we are not it’s masters, it is ours. Covid will do what covid does and unfortunately if we think living with it in some way means “carrying on Regardless” as before we are in for a very very bad time as the cycles of deaths and long term harm will stack up year on year and end up costing more and more. As I said before, you can ignore the tide all you want but if your standing on what’s going to be the Sea bed and 10 foot under water In an hour you move or drown ( covid is as implacable as the sea).

          • Well except that after the Spanish Flu pandemic people adapted to it, and yes now some of us get annual flu shots, but most of us don’t.
            Such will be life with Covid, doomsayers not withstanding.

          • Hi Dearn flu is a very different virus that Covid 19, trying to us it as an analogue is a bit of a red herring also you need to remember the effects of covid 19 will on top of flu. Most of the doom sayers im afraid are generally health care professionals and public health professionals very few of which have much good to say or are feeling very positive about their future working lives.

            couple of things about pandemic flu/ sessional flu vs Covid:
            1) because of the way flu works, pandemic flu tends to circulate for a couple of years as a pandemic and then blends with sessional flu, that’s because flu viruses mix and share. We also have a very good long term immunity to flu viruses we have contact with, that’s why they have to mutate and share as if they stay the same their chances of reinfecting an individual are very small. Corona virus and Covid seem to not for whatever reason leave behind natural immunity beyond 6 -12 month ( we get the same corona viruses every year). Covid seems to be a virus that’s as good as flu at knocking out mutations, that unusual as most virus don’t change as quickly ( measles is the most infectious disease in the world but you get it once and once only). So latest evidence from Israel is vaccine efficacy after 60 months is 60% ish.

            2) Flu has a natural R0 of about 1.5, it’s not actually a very infectious diseases and is very much bottom draw ( if we actually wanted to we could easily stop flu deaths in their tracks, we did last year). Covid 19 has moved from a natural R0 of a respectable 2.5 at the start to 8. It’s heading to the very top draw of most infectious diseases.

            3) Flu generally has a very low case fatality rate and that’s stacked almost exclusively in the very frail. CFR of less than 0.1 and it still kills 10k a year 20k in a bad year. It also has no real long term impacts on health. Even with vaccines seems to have a case mortality rate of .3 and seems to leave around 10% of people with a range of long term health issues. Flu attacks the lungs, covid hits lungs, GI track, heart, liver, kidneys, neurological system ( including brain).

            4) Any impact on hospital admissions health services deaths each will be on top of normal flu and respiratory diseases. So even if it was “just like flu” that 10k more deaths and double the hospital admissions… but it’s not like flu and even in a year it’s well controlled by the vaccine programme keeping up its going to be worse than our worst flu years ever year from now on….as someone who’s been there and lived it , I’m not doomsaying I’m just telling it what we are going to be living with…..and “living with“ had never meant staying the same.

            But understand it’s a comfort to think of it as something we know and understand like flu…..but it’s not. Use your mask, understand when your vaccinations are likely to stop being so efficacious and the case rates are up, space, face and hands and actually believing that this disease has the power to kill you may save yourself or a loved one from harm, freedom and choice without knowledge is no freedom and choices can only be made wisely if you understand the potential likely outcome of the choices.

          • I pretty much disagree with everything you’ve said there.

            We had a massive flu pandemic 100 years ago, and now we live with it.
            We’ve had a considerably less massive, and less deadly coronavirus pandemic now, and we will carry on as normal within a few years.

            You can sit there and try to act like anyone who doesn’t buy into your fear mongering is a naysayer and talk down to them in your condescending style, but it doesn’t change the fact that we have continued our normal life styles after every pandemic and this one will be no change.

            Sorry, you don’t like that, but then again you are one of the doomsayers so what should we expect.

          • Thanks for the insults there dern. I have not talked anyone one down, I’ve imparted my knowledge and understanding and experience of managing outbreaks and epidemics over several decades ( funnily including being on a gold command during a flu pandemic as a risk lead, so I sort of get how flu pandemic work).

            i won’t bother you anymore with why flu and covid are totally different diseases, work in different ways and have a completely different risk profile and outbreak management requirements.

            As for changing lifestyle if you think your lifestyle is the same as those who lived through the 1918 flu pandemic Your having al laught. Those people lived short lives in fear of diseases that we no longer worry about because we changed how we lived at vast expense and over many decades using knowledge of public health built up over generations, that slowly changed things like housing, water quality, air quality, nutrition and waste management.

            I hope your right and and am a domsayer, but unfortunately I actual do know what I’m talking about and have spent years managing and think through things like this, but it’s a complex old game so I can be wrong as can any other healthcare/public health professional.

            Away have fun, thanks for the insults, it’s always good to get put down by someone who thinks they know better than you even thought it’s your job and they have read some stuff on the internet.

        • Yes it has been seen to stop the spread but not in all cases.
          The cases on QE are proof of that.

          2 guys I work with, both double vaccinated caught it.
          No symptoms, no adverse affects and only found out they had it during random testing which is a big requirement here.
          Now both sat at home for 10 days to ensure they don’t pass it on to anyone else.

          If you are vaccinated you are likely to show little if any effects if you get it.

        • Actually, if you think about it you have to ‘catch’ a virus for any vaccine to work. That is because a vaccine educates your immune system to the threat so it can respond.

          As your immune system is ‘inside’ you, you have to be infected before your immune system responds. So vaccines do not stop you ‘catching’ the virus, they enable you to deal with it better than you would have without the vaccine.

          So if you were likely die without a vaccine you might end up being very ill, if you were likely to be very ill without the vaccine you end up being mildly ill, etc. etc…

          They also greatly reduce transimition, they do not eliminate transition.

          We are now faced with how do we live with this blasted virus and as anyone who has tried to go on holiday recently knows, until everyone is vaccinated we are all still at risk. We are far from out of the woods yet.

          All it would take is for another mutation that can get around the vaccine and we would find oursleves back to square one, so rich countries need to deliver on vaccinations for developing countries as well.

          Globally, the situation is very poor, but the news only talks about national impacts. Which is not helping people to understand the real risks.

          Sorry rant over.

          Cheers CR

          • Mutations are absolutely normal and predictable the winter flu vaccinations are different each year because the virus mutates each year. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry but the Scientists are on known territory compared to 18 months ago. Maybe famous last words but we’re on top of this.

          • Hi David,

            Mutations are only predictable in the sense that they ‘will’ happen.

            Which mutations actually happen is not predictable. We can pre-identify those areas of a virus that would create problems and be on the look out for them once we mapped and understood the virus genetics. H0wever, then you are relying on the testing, tracking and genetic sequencing capabilities of the ‘host’ country.

            So the UK is in an especially good place when it comes to genetic sequencing capabilities, but our capacity, good though it is, can only really cope with what is going on in the UK. We can and do help other countries but they usually have to highlight something new before they can justify getting the sequencing done, i.e. treatements / vaccines not working as well as they did a couple of months ago.

            Hopefully, we will get to a similar place as we have with flu, but globally and therefore ‘all’ of us are far from that place yet. I would also point out that where we were with flu previously may no longer to acceptable as a flu pandemic in the context of an on going COVID pandemic, or just vulnerability to COVID out breakes, would be really bad news globally and for the NHS.

            We still have not come to terms with a ‘new normal’ which is something the politicians have stopped talking about, which I feel is irresponsible…

            Cheers CR

          • Good points I think I’m just fed up with the last 18 months. Fingers crossed nothing we can’t cope with shows up. Cheers.

          • Me too.

            I’ve just had a cancer op so hopefully I am OK now, but we lost someone to COVID who was being treated for cancer. It was quick and shocking. So I really just don’t want to risk going backwards. I think we should at least keep face masks as a minimum.

            To be honest being fed up is better than getting ill with COVID. You have to be alive to be fed up after all.

            I fear the politicians are risking throwing all the efforts and suffering away for some half baked politically motivated rush to unlock. This is not politics, it is nature and mother nature does give a scoobies about politics, rights or anything else.

            Fingers cross we get away with it.

            All the best David and keep safe.

            Cheers CR

          • Sorry the only thing predictable about mutations is:

            1) They are biologically and mathematically certain to occur, the function of how many occur and how quickly is linked to the Speed of each generation and number of organisms in any generation. The Covid Virus have around a 3 day generation and numbers wise at peak infection each person could have up to 10-13 times more virons than people on the planet.
            2) if a mutation allows an organism an advantage in reproduction over what came before it will become dominant. That means any mutation that is more transmissible or better at evading any immune response will dominate.
            3) death rate of the host/vector is not a function of ability to reproduce ( only speed of death) so any successful new mutation would have the same chance of having a higher or lower case fatality rate.

            science is not in any way on top of this, we have not a foggy clue or idea what the mechanisms are by which this disease causes Acute kidney disease and other organs to fail as well as the very odd clotting risks found in both the active disease and a number of the vaccines. We also don’t understand the mechanics of long covid or how that will interact with vaccine programs.

            Now I know there is a bit of don’t want to hear what the expert who’s living this problem thinks if it’s not a message we want to hear. But that’s my message and I’m qualified and experienced enough that it’s an actual knowledge based view not a media, politician based one.

  9. Well that wasn’t too smart.

    Considering the task group is only at the beginning of the global deployment, it make you wonder what will happen in the coming months if shore leave is allowed to continue, and if the ports of call will allow crews from the ships to disembark.

    Here in Sydney we’ve just had ships from Japan, South Korea and the US visit, but due to Covid restrictions, the crews were not allowed to leave secure areas at Fleet Base East:

    https://news.defence.gov.au/international/foreign-warships-sydney-exercise

    The rules might appear to be very strict, but it protects both the visiting crews and the local Sydney population too.

    Cheers,

    • Pretty much the same here in BHR. Crew are not allowed out of the base area and mostly stay on the jetty in thir bubble. . To get on a ship you need proof of jab and a – ve test within 24 hours. Temp checks on embarkation, masks, gloves, only transit to and from the work area, sanitise etc…
      Just been doing it today repairing a ship…

      • Mate, here in Oz Exercise Talisman Sabre 21 has just started:

        https://news.defence.gov.au/capability/talisman-sabre-kicks-queensland

        TS21 includes more than 17,000 personnel from Australia and the US deploying across central and northeast Queensland and off the east coast of Australia.

        In addition to the US, forces from Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom will participate in TS21, and Australian-based personnel from India, Indonesia, France and Germany will observe the exercise.

        The approx 2,000 foreign military personnel who’ve arrived on shore have all gone through 14 day mandatory quarantine that all foreign visitors to Australia must do, without exception.

        Cheers,

        • Watch out for the bloody Huntsman spiders ! If you see one make yourself as big as possible and shout at the top of your voice.Whatever you do don’t run or they’ll see you as prey !
           😀 

  12. Slightly off topic but, re Carrier Strike Group. Watching Kaiser Report on RT yesterday, the guest was Dan Collins, an auto executive who lived & worked in China for 20 years & has a good idea of the official Chinese mindset. His parting comment was “Wolf diplomacy” is looking for an excuse to sink a foreign carrier off the seas of China. A way of sending a strong message without starting WW3 (they think). They would not risk sinking a USN carrier, but would be happy to sink an Australian, Japanese, S Korean, Indian or British carrier. The QE group will need more caution when in that area. The British Government also needs to work out NOW what its retaliation would be. Obliterating one of the man made islands in contested waters would be an obvious choice, as we could say we were supporting the sovereignty of an ally.

    • But it will be wise to not go with T45 trough the strait. Imagine one stopped there, or having to go very slowly with the issue. Problem is that they are the carrier AAW defence…

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