Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Billy the Fish]

I should its important to remember we could have been in a position to "responsibly" lift the remaining restrictions if they'd actually properly secured our borders. (ironically the very thing the Tories have obsessed about for the last decade)

I said it earlier in the thread and I haven't changed my mind, Covid is here to stay and it's a straight up choice between restrictions forever or open up and take our chances with the vaccine. If we don't open now it won't happen until next spring.

Securing the borders would've only kicked the can down the road. Delta is apparently over twice as infectious as the original virus, it can't be stopped. Australia is having outbreaks of delta and this is a country with far fewer people and essentially closed borders and they still couldn't stop it. People love to pull out a graph to compare our infections with the rest of Europe, they are a month or so behind with Delta and they will inevitably be faced with the same choices later in the summer.

I'm not trying to dress it up as a good thing, as they said yesterday some unlucky people will die or get long covid (maybe it will be me) but this is the reality. Look at Israel, it's spreading round people who are double jabbed and that will happen here.

I don't blame people for being scared or deciding to isolate for a bit longer.

 

[darkwolf666]

I know exactly how you feel as I have Myeloma and am permanently on chemotherapy. I have always tried to assess risk objectively which has meant that in recent months I have commuted on the tube, eaten out etc with safety measures in place but I can’t see how I can continue do so when these are removed and with infection rates as they are. So, it will be effectively be back to shielding in 2 weeks. I lost my mother and an uncle to Covid and I don’t want my family to lose anyone else. Looking at a Myeloma social media support group this morning, it is clear that people are scared.

I have corresponded with my local MP, libertarian lunatic wing of the Tory party, and it is clear that he sees society as being split into those that contribute and those that are a burden. It is also clear into which he would put me although I have continued to work full time since diagnosis 3 years ago managing an entrepreneur support service which has been praised by many Tory mps and ministers, including Johnson himself. I am generally very positive but am really struggling today.

It's very difficult isn't it - I understand the need for the majority to get back to normal, it just seems the very people who have the most to lose and were the basis of the original lockdowns are now being ignored - or treated as collateral damage now the NHS won't get swamped!

 

[darkwolf666]

I said it earlier in the thread and I haven't changed my mind, Covid is here to stay and it's a straight up choice between restrictions forever or open up and take our chances with the vaccine. If we don't open now it won't happen until next spring.

Securing the borders would've only kicked the can down the road. Delta is apparently over twice as infectious as the original virus, it can't be stopped. Australia is having outbreaks of delta and this is a country with far fewer people and essentially closed borders and they still couldn't stop it. People love to pull out a graph to compare our infections with the rest of Europe, they are a month or so behind with Delta and they will inevitably be faced with the same choices later in the summer.

I'm not trying to dress it up as a good thing, as they said some unlucky people will die or get long covid (maybe it will be me) but this is the reality. Look at Israel, it's spreading round people who are double jabbed and that will happen here.

By why does it have to be a straight choice between doing nothing and restrictions forever, why can't there be some middle ground and balance to arguments?

 

[Richy_Seagull]

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1412089591931285512?s=21

 

[Hotchilidog]

It's very difficult isn't it - I understand the need for the majority to get back to normal, it just seems the very people who have the most to lose and were the basis of the original lockdowns are now being ignored - or treated as collateral damage now the NHS won't get swamped!

I think you are quite right to have strong feelings about this. On a personal level I am pleased that there will be a lifting of restrictions (although I do believe the mask mandate for transport and shops should stay in place). I think on a macro level we are in a place where we can now look to move forward. That said it should not be at the expense of those who are still in the most vulnerable situations. Instead of just dismissing the vulnerable as an inconvenience, which shamefully I believe this government is doing, they should be able to allocate more resources and support to those who need it.

I am looking forward to having a less restrictive life but the tone of yesterday's announcement left cold. It had the air of we can't be bothered with this crap anymore let's just move on. As you have so eloquently expressed, many people are not in a position to move on and wish this away as if it never happened.

All the best to you and your family in these upcoming months and all those in similar circumstances.

 

[e77]

So we might reach 100,000 cases a day by end of Summer? To put that into context we peaked at about 60,000 a day in early January. Fully acknowledge that the vaccine will reduce the severity for most so hospitalisations and deaths should be relatively much lower but that is still a lot of people being ill at once and quite possibly needing time off work.

 

[studio150]

UK cases could hit 100,000 a day this summer, Sajid Javid admits, so 3m a month, but this is now the time to completely bin every safeguard that has been in place.
So giving the virus a boost before the autumn when it is likely to spread even more.

It may just be me, but is Johnson looking to avoid taking responsibility for covid deaths, but be able to blame it all on the public not making sensible changes once the virus is running wild again.

I've no idea why we couldn't have had a relaxation which still left legal requirements for masks on public transport and selected other locations just as other countries (such as New Zealand) have.

And to think Hancock said heard immunity was never the plan.

 

[dsr-burnley]

People are talking about masks as if they are the one difference-maker that will stop the spread. They aren't. Mask mandate has been in place all through May and June and the number of cases has risen fast. The impression appears to be that if we all wore masks it would stop the spread - it won't.

If we seriously want to stop coronavirus from spreading, we need to go back to lockdown as it was in April 2020, and we need to stay there until at least Spring next year. And that, I believe, would be a cure worse than the illness.

 

[Billy the Fish]

By why does it have to be a straight choice between doing nothing and restrictions forever, why can't there be some middle ground and balance to arguments?

If you mean lighter restrictions, that is still restrictions. It's a binary choice.

 

[Billy the Fish]

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1412089591931285512?s=21

And that's the lock up forever side of the argument.

 

[Poojah]

Well after a night of almost zero sleep I get up finding myself feeling so isolated and detached from the real world and “normality”.

The government have announced a return to normality, but without a single mention of those whose lives will never be normal again.

I live in a household with someone who is clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV). We have all had our double vaccinations (I refuse to trivialise here by calling them jabs) so clearly have some level of protection - but do we?

My wife has blood cancer and a type that early research shows doesn’t significantly build up anti-bodies, so it’s quite possible she has very little protection from the virus.

Since March 2020, as a CEV person my wife has been offered support, guidance and even some legislative back up from the government - however, it appears that has all now gone! The protections for CEV people have ended and I didn’t hear one mention of CEV in Boris’ latest speech and to be honest, my wife is probably now less protected from Covid than she was 17 months ago.

Clearly treatments are better, but at this time if my wife were to end up in hospital with Covid, she has an approximate 50% chance of coming out alive, so please excuse me if I don’t celebrate Freedom Day!

I feel so alone and scared, yet I have to support my wife and convince her all will be fine, while secretly thinking it won’t.

My world crashed down in October 2019 when my wife received her cancer diagnosis, we saw some light at the end of the tunnel with an initial successful chemotherapy regime, then Covid arrived, but at least with the measures in place it felt like we were all in it “together” as my wife continued her 2 years worth of maintenance chemotherapy.

Now my world has come crashing down with an almost unbearable weight again, and I feel so alone and bereft of any feelings of a positive future.

Maybe in the next 2 weeks Boris will offer some solace and give further advice and protection in law for those CEV people, but I’m not holding out too much hope! It would appear that it is the very CEV people who gave up the most in the early days of the virus, by shielding, by locking themselves in for months on end, who will still pay the price and be the inevitable but sad deaths that Boris spoke of.

I really hope people can enjoy getting back to normal, going to the pub and standing at the bar, going to the theatre and concerts, having days out without having to pre-book, and of course not forgetting backed crowds at the football - but while you are enjoying getting your freedom back, please spare a thought for those for who life will possibly never be normal again!

I’m sorry if this post seems moany and self centred, I also apologise to those who read this and think, oh God he’s banging on about his wife’s cancer again, give it a rest, but this is how I feel now and it is from the heart and how I feel about our future.

That's a very moving post, and your anguish and anxiety are palpable.

Admittedly, I am not faced with your understandably worrying circumstances, however I am not as thrilled at the looming prospect of 'freedom day' as I expected I might be. Like you, I have missed going to the football, standing in busy pubs, having 'normal', undiluted days out with the kids and just being able to do what I want, when I want (within reason of course). But I'm somewhat uneasy about the point at which we're jumping off the lockdown bus.

A few weeks back, before the Delta variant had really come to the fore, I was watching case numbers tick down and was looking forward to a point where the virus was low in circulation, and being increasingly suffocated by the effects of our vaccination program. Evidently, Delta has changed that trajectory and we're now talking about six figure case numbers within a matter of weeks.

Now, don't misunderstand me here - I am not one of those hand-wringing, "lockdown forever" types. To the contrary, I want normality as much as anyone and I completely understand that cases ain't what they used to be - I did the maths recently myself and posted it on the Good News Thread, the case fatality rate has gone from over 2% at peak to less than 0.1% now thanks to vaccinations, fewer than 1 in every 1,000 cases dying.

But there are still so many unanswered questions. First and foremost, how many of the cases currently being reported are in vaccinated people? How many vaccinated people are ending up in hospital (even if not as sick as before). Johnson said yesterday that a majority of those being hospitalised are unvaccinated, but the word "majority" is a statistically blunt instrument - is it 51% or 99%.

What's going to happen with track and trace, and the concept of self-isolating without symptoms. If I'm going back to the office, back to standing in busy pubs, back to packed football stadiums, then with 100k+ daily cases the chances of me coming into contact with someone who goes on to test positive is surely quite high. If my NHS app is going to be pinging me relentlessly telling me I have to isolate, then that's not quite "freedom" as I knew it.

Can I go about my business 'as normal' and still feel comfortable about close contact with my elderly parents. Both have been fully vaccinated, but how ill could I potentially make them? What are the chances of me, a fully vaccinated person contracting and transmitting Covid at this juncture? I don't really know, and it's that which makes me a little uncomfortable.

And of course, what about those vulnerable people who can't be protected by vaccinations who have relied thus far on the protection provided by a combination of shielding and the concept of social distancing on the occasion they have had to take a foray out of the house. I get that this is a difficult situation for the government, and there are so many aspects that need to be considered. No government policy in history has suited everyone, but rarely has one had the potential to have such a direct impact upon life and death for the minority for whom unlocking at this moment understandably does not suit. How long will it take for vaccinations and herd immunity to reduce prevalence of the virus to nominal levels, where the clinically vulnerable can begin to feel a modicum of safety?

And then there's the variants. I don't purport to understand how and why they come about other than apparently random mutations occur when they replicate inside a person, but is it prudent to potentially allow very high levels to exist, largely dormant within our society, but with a chance of leading to vaccine escape? I imagine the Johnson school of thinking is along the lines of "fúck it, we'll cross that bridge if we come to it", but it will be a pretty big bridge to cross.

Honestly, there are so many perspectives on this. From the vulnerable who are about to be put at even greater risk by unlocking now, to the young who are at little risk but have sacrificed some of their prime years in order to protect others. I find it so conflicting that I'm not even sure what my own perspective is anymore, but I'd have greater confidence in this next step not going tits up if the points above had been robustly addressed (if any have, and I've missed it, feel free to put me straight).

Regardless, my heart goes out to those for whom 19th July causes understandable worry and anxiety. I wish you all the very best.

 

[LamieRobertson]

So we might reach 100,000 cases a day by end of Summer? To put that into context we peaked at about 60,000 a day in early January. Fully acknowledge that the vaccine will reduce the severity for most so hospitalisations and deaths should be relatively much lower but that is still a lot of people being ill at once and quite possibly needing time off work.

Cases but not necessarily ill people.

 

[beorhthelm]

By why does it have to be a straight choice between doing nothing and restrictions forever, why can't there be some middle ground and balance to arguments?

we're in the middle ground. its not helpful, either in terms of reducing infection or letting people move on. some restrictions might be better to keep but as they are unenforced , maybe it makes more sense now adopt a advisory position. and open up parts of the economy closed for 18 months, to the benefit of a great many.

 

[e77]

Cases but not necessarily ill people.

Apparently, and the nature of the beast is this is difficult to accurately state, 15-30% of Covid cases are asymptomatic so that is still 70-85,000 people a day showing symptoms. The vaccines means an overwhelming majority of them won't go near a hospital but the days when if you had a bit of sniffle you went to the office and everyone else got it over the next week or two won't be coming back anytime soon.

I would be interested to know how long they expect that peak to last.

 

[A1X]

Cases but not necessarily ill people.

Every new case provides the potential for mutation and a new variant.

 

[Bozza]

People are talking about masks as if they are the one difference-maker that will stop the spread.

Who and where are these people - I don't know any anywhere, including posts on here.

They aren't.

Agreed - which is why no-one I can think of is suggesting they absolutely stop viral spread. They are, however, a simple and cost-effective NPI that can help reduce infection spread.

[tweet]1412018670696636416[/tweet]

Mask mandate has been in place all through May and June and the number of cases has risen fast.

Are you prepared to believe that there is a scenario that no masks could have seen an ever faster rise?

The impression appears to be that if we all wore masks it would stop the spread - it won't.

Nope - not seeing that view expressed anywhere.

Unfortunately, masks have become highly symbolic for a certain demographic - generally the type who struggle to understand how "personal responsibility" can be problematic when actions taken have the potential to impact others.

 

[A1X]

Still, what could possibly go wrong with trusting the instincts and common sense of a population which two years ago was calling 999 because KFC ran out of chicken...

 

[darkwolf666]

If you mean lighter restrictions, that is still restrictions. It's a binary choice.

Ah, a binary choice, you mean like life or death?

Masks on public transport would have seemed a sensible move for a while longer as would masks in shops, a heck of a lot scientists appear to agree with this stance, with the Delta variant rising and not just the lockdowners - this all reminds me of the old adage of throwing the baby out with the bath water!!!

As for life's restrictions, I would imagine you wear a seat belt in a car, don't drink then drive, don't use a mobile phone while at the wheel of a motor vehicle - restrictions that most of us happily sign up for in just one facet of our lives, but restrictions all the same.

 

[darkwolf666]

we're in the middle ground. its not helpful, either in terms of reducing infection or letting people move on. some restrictions might be better to keep but as they are unenforced , maybe it makes more sense now adopt a advisory position. and open up parts of the economy closed for 18 months, to the benefit of a great many.

I have zero problem with ALL the sections of society reopening, nightclubs et al. It is personal choice if you go to a nightclub, festival, the football or whatever, but for many vulnerable people using public transport for appointments or going to the shops for supplies isn't a choice.

Continuing with masks in those situations, at this moment of the pandemic may have been a sensible move...

 

[LamieRobertson]

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1412089591931285512?s=21

Ah Eric who said kids shouldn’t be returning to school and then promptly moved them to Austria where they went to school….who offered advice for months and then turned round and asked for money …hmmm