Today I had my second jab of the Astra Zeneca vaccine. No ill effects. I am still going to wear my mask in shops etc as I could, in theory, still be contagious (though at reduced risk). quite when I will stop wearing the mask is up for debate. -I suspect that there will be some people, probably including myself, that will continue to use them particularly when we have a cold.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

for getting the second jab. I got mine back in April - and had a whole load of side effects, including a multi day headache. The medics took the headache so seriously that I got one of the very few face to face consultations with a GP down at the local health centre and a whole battery of blood tests to check me out. Whether it was an actual AZ headache or a psychosomatic one I invented for myself who knows as it eventually went off of its own accord. My emergency medicine consultant brother in law said though that as soon as the headache symptom hit the press back in the winter they were swamped with people coming in saying they had a headache. Many of them hadn't even had the vaccine.

Having the vaccine and mask wearing do seem to be two different things. Everyone over 40 - round here anyway - should have had / been offered (not the same) the vaccine x2 but mask wearing is still universal in shops etc - because they're insisting on it. At the start of all this last year the 'precautions' lagged behind the actual virus by quite some time. Now it's the other way round, with the removal of restrictions lagging behind what's happening with the bug. I don't see mask wearing being 'derestricted' for quite some time - mainly because it gives a kind of a sense of security to some people + it doesn't really cause much of an economic hit. And it continues this 'national emergency' feeling, so hold off on the divisive politics / strikes and stop complaining about no foreign holidays etc. Vote Boris, he'll see you all right.

I am pulling my hair out with one of my employees. He has a chronic chest complaint and should be considered extremely clinically vulerable. He is also one of the world's biggest hypochondriac and his wife is worse than him - however he is a good employee and I want the best for him.

His wife had a reaction to the vaccine - Astra Zeneca I think - and so won't have the second dose - my understanding is that the evidence is any reaction to the second dose is less than the first reaction.

He won't have the first dose as he doesn't want a reaction of any sort. He has seen the effects on a family member of Covid, he knows my father in law died from it, another member of staff was really groggy with it and he knows that if he gets Covid he is liable to have, at best, a poor outcome but he will not have any of the vaccines in case he gets a headache. I have offered to take him to the appointment, given him information about the vaccines -I just can't understand some people.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Its shame when you have a situation like that, no easy way round it.

I've had both mine, AZ, first I felt crap the day after and if that was a very mild experience of COVID, I certainly don't want the main thing. 2nd dose was much better with no real reactions.

Unfortunately we live in a world where fake news and conspiracy theories take precedent over actual science. Brexit, Trump and now COVID have revealed how quickly people will believe the fake information spread so widely.

I`m still wondering that the EM Championship (congratulation to the uk) is running near normal, where the as "delta" named variant starts to get the leadership in many countries.

And it seems that too the full vaccinated people can get it.

Germany starts to get travellers from portugal to quarantaine, vaccinated or not. In Israel the masks get their revival.

Translated from:
https://www.srf.ch/news/internationa...delta-variante

for your employees -maybe this helps:



https://www.swissmedic.ch/swissmedic...ty-update.html

As a men any risk seems to be much lower!

But for shure, the swiss officials still didnt approve the AC vaccination (for a reason?), so the statistic may be looks different in the UK.

But anyway, the UK did a good job for vaccination: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55274833

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Fully vaccinated people can certainly get Covid...

My mate and his wife had a weekend away in Cornwall a couple of weeks ago and a few days after returning they both tested positive for the the delta variant... Both of them had received their 2nd phizer jab over 2 months ago. He had fairly mild symptoms but his wife was quite poorly for over a week. Both still in isolation.

In South Glos UK where I live, there were 421 new cases last week which is a 70% increase from the previous week

I expect with all the footy going on and social gatherings etc.. its only going to get worse..

We're controlled and manipulated by 3 word slogans
The latest fake news is that the majority of people dying from Covid are double vaccinated.
So easy to manipulate data to portray this. People dying usually have several and severe underlying health issues and are 60yr old plus. So yep, lots are double vaccinated. No vaccine is 100% effective.
So if we all get vaccinated 100% of deaths can be claimed to be either due to the actual vaccine or the vaccine being ineffective

Anyway. My hamster died 3 days after I had the AZ vaccine. Big pharma kept that side effect well hidden

Where have you read such a claim? I've seen literally dozens of articles from different sources claiming that the vast majority (95%+) of new COVID hospitalisations are unvaccinated. Here is just one such story: https://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ne...n-unvaccinated
"Of the 63 new COVID cases recorded during the weeks ended June 13 and 20, only two were in fully vaccinated people"

and another: https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid...e-unvaccinated
"Of more than 18,000 people who died from COVID-19, for example, only about 150 were fully vaccinated. That's less than 1%."

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

I certainly wasn't implying any credence to this.
I hang around some American forums. Need I say more?
Occasionally I follow the links, it usually takes 4 or 5 seconds to determine the latest "expert" is a fraud. Last one was a former UK Doctor Alexander who was struck off for creating false claims about the mmr vaccine. Mostly it's just out of morbid curiosity.
When you've vaccinated 90%+ of the vulnerable (UK numbers) it's easy to put a negative spin when some of these die.
The Daily Mail chose to run a story implying this, so not even some loony toon conspiracy theory source. Just a politically motivated rag of a news paper.

So there may be a longer delay to easy global travel than we were hoping for as it would appear that the rich nations have hogged the vast majority of the vaccines so far. Much more detail here.

The long and the short of it is that whilst the west has promised to deliver lots of vaccines to the poorer nations the promises have not yet been delivered plus India has stopped exporting vaccines whilst they sort themselves out - hopefully this will be sorted quickly so we can get the vaccine roll out globally done as fast as possible.

Mind you, there are still the people that refuse the vaccine in every country, some cannot have it due to medical conditions - and that I understand - I don't include Stupidity in the group of understandable medical conditions.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Jab 3 coming to a clinic near you shortly (my daughter gets hers this week), so I wonder whether part of the hoarding has been in anticipation of this going ahead. I have wondered whether there's a foreign aid budget analogy element to this, where the vaccines have been used - like money usually is - as a political influence stick to beat people with.

As for vaccine 'refuseniks', my sympathy gene seems to have run the whole gamut over the last year or so from 'they don't understand' through 'we need to convince them' to 'on their own heads be it'. I had a friend in the US email me a few days ago and mention that his next door neighbour's live at home son has just caught it. Both parents are unvaccinated by choice and all three of them are now quarantined together at home. It'll be interesting to see how that one works out. On the other hand, one of my wife's medical partners has just caught it as well and is confined to her house. She's double vaccinated and (so far anyway) isn't that ill with it. Because the practice is so overwhelmed with work she's still having to take patient referrals by phone / zoom while trying to recover.

I suspect that there is a large element of retention for the third jab going on - they have been talking of the booster jab publicly for some time so behind closed doors for longer than that. However, there should be sufficient to start to deliver on the promises. .

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

As this thread is supposed to be about travel ON A MOTORCYCLE during these times I thought that I might make an on topic contribution.

Unlike most of the people who have contributed to this thread I have actually recently traveled in Europe (about a month ago) on a motorcycle and can therefore provide factual information.

During August 2021 I traveled from Poland to Spain via Germany and France.

Despite the false and or inaccurate media stories about restricted borders, COVID test requirements, vaccination proof etc. etc. I can state the following FACTS.

There were no border checks OF ANY KIND at any of the borders of the above mentioned countries.

I stopped in service stations in all four countries and bought petrol without the need to show any proof of vaccination or otherwise.

I took overnight accommodation in all four countries without the need to show any proof of vaccination or otherwise.

I sat in cafes and bars in all four countries without the need to show any proof of vaccination or otherwise.

I hope this information is helpful.

A bit late now, but on-topic:

If you have a Janssen vaccine (1-shot) it's best not to ride a motorbike afterwards for a good long time - I waited the prescribed 15 mins to see if I might keel over, yet felt fine. But then on the way home (only about 25kms) I started to feel dizzy and by the time I arrived I really wasn't safe to be on a bike.

As for travel restrictions, Spain doesn't have a "covid passport" in effect within it's borders (it was ruled unconstitutional) so once you're here that's it. My understanding is that in France they may restrict nightclubs and other things where crowding may happen.