Everyone who has talked about stockpiling on this thread is doing so to protect very vulnerable people.
Might be worth reading a thread before commenting?
Erm. I read.
I still think people who are vulnerable need the money on the treatment they need rather than the worry of something they might not.
Unfortunately the ultimate problem here, is that whilst some people are going to continue testing, most people can't afford to and there are only so many tests that the nhs is going to be able to send out in the next month.
So any one vulnerable is still likely to be exposed to a potential risk if there is one from people who they aren't related to anyway. You can't stop the risk of exposure and the risk will be based more on the % of people not testing and whether the vaccines are working rather than on family members testing constantly.
My Dad is very clinically vulnerable. He is pretty matter of fact about the realities of it and whether its worth testing going forward.
Rates locally to him are likely to be starting to hit under 200 per 100,000 by the time isolation ends (and the data lag has unravelled). They were 2000 a few weeks back so in relative terms he doesn't feel he is substantially more at risk than at the end of December.
My cavet here is over death rates and hospitalisations. We can still see these and tests will still be done for patients. If we start to see a big uptick then we've got a problem. But again I don't know that there's going to be a huge amount we can do against that unless its a variant which is exceptional (which is a possibility but it needs to be kept in perspective). We know that case numbers mean very little - its hospitalisations that matter. With omicron we saw the numbers go up - but we still had to wait for hospitalisation data to work out the level of threat the variant has. In terms of observing new variants this is the data that matters and pcrs for this scenario are not stopping.
We know that developing a new variant vaccine takes 2 to 3 months min. If we have a severe variant come through, by the time we identify its severe (which is done by hospitalisations not case numbers remember) we already have x amount of cases. If transmission rates are high, we are already stuffed and testing being available for free, isn't necessarily going to be effective enough - we'd need more than that immediately. And if you have a couple of boxes of lfts in the house thats probably going to be enough for that scenario initially at least. If they the transmission rate is more moderate, then the argument for lfts is probably stronger as the effect is more significant.
I genuinely have considered this.
I just have come to a different conclusion and think we are better off putting the resources the Treasury has released (and doesn't look likely to increase) into other areas of the health service where its more likely to have a positive impact.
Politically the decision here is made. I remain somewhat neutral about whether it's the right call. But given the data we have and the practicalities here, i think carrying on constantly doing asymptomatic tests is a bit like pissing in the wind, even with regards to the vulnerable.
Lfts still give a window where you are infectious but not positive. This has always been at the back of my mind that you are never 'safe' to visit a vulnerable family member. So we tend to try and consider this as part of any contact we have with vulnerable family members. And we've done that even with lfts. I don't like the 'false sense of security' issue lfts raise.