Lockdown and Indian Variant in the UK

[DadAManger]

Anyone else confused as to why the Government held our borders open to arrivals from India for several weeks even after (a) cases in India were spiralling out of control fast and (b) they knew there was a new variant driving the cases? And now Boris gives us another 5pm unscheduled briefing today telling us we may need to hold back on the roadmap out of this.

Even my 11 year old asked me at the time why we stayed open to packed flights from India at that time...! Sensible commentators such as Dr John Campbell also seem frustrated and confused.

And I say this as someone who usually supports the government and Boris.

The PM is following the money men instead of the science. I could not believe that shambles of a Press Conference. We were told not to worry about the variant, then on another day were told it's a variant of concern. Which is it and of what concern is it? All this bl*dy vagueness is doing my head in. Meanwhile all we get is bluster and false hope. Im with Australia, shut the damn airports. At least till we see what is going on with variants. Stop giving us unrealistic dates and drivel. Tell us exactly what is going on, we are not children. I have family and friends I have not seen for over a year, because us mugs stuck to the rules. While it seems football players, newsreaders,so called singers and celebs, can do what they like and fly around the world. All in this together my ar. Angry much? Yes, I bl*dy well am. The only thing I will give UK govt was the vaccination programme has been fairly well organised, but that was possibly more Mr Hancock.As for Indian/UK and other trade conferences get on Zoom/teams etc like all the other working people in this country have had to do all year. Never mind the freebies and the galivanting.

All these people saying closing borders doesn't help, have you seen the figures in France and all those European countries where it should be harder to contain than an island nation. They have Indian variant figures in the low 10s while ours are over 1000. Again. This isn't an inevitability. This is Boris being shit. Again. I guess if it's finally getting through to his supporters like the OP that he and this government are actually fucking awful, then there is some silver lining. But other PPs must need total devastation before they start to question his 'methods'.

@Pinkdelight3 there are a million factors that affect the spread of a particular variant in a particular country at a particular time. You cannot look at one variable and draw these kinds of nonsense conclusions. Yes, it is absolutely unrealistic to think we can keep new variants out- this is not the world we live in. “Closing” borders has devastating consequences and is not going to protect us. Putting India in the red zone earlier would have made no difference, the variant was already here. Can you , and all like you , who want to live in an authoritarian, closed, covid-zero island please bugger off and let the rest of us visit our families, work, attend weddings, funerals, send our children to school , and do all the other things that make life worth living, in peace. For the love of god please.

Others have offered reasons so I won't add to them.

I am sorry to read that you support Mr Johnson usually. I would like a Prime Minister with basic morals and who acknowledges all the children they have fathered (or mothered if a woman). Every single alternative Conservative leader would be better.

I hope I don’t give the impression that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Conservative - I am not. But, in all seriousness, should all have voted for Corbyn instead? Do we really think he would have handled this well? Out of options on this. And Starmer could have used PMQ to push the Government on this open border cock-up instead of grilling Boris about his wallpaper and couch and who paid for what first. This is the sort of political issue which is best kept for healthy and successful times surely? Just my opinion of course and the comments made disagreeing are cogent.

I do disagree that it would come in anyway since we are a world economy. I really get this given my work. But I feel the Government have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on this.

Leaving the borders open was surely only for political reasons The UK want to trade with India and also they manufacture the majority of our vaccines.

Boris is an absolute incompetent tool, we will be all put in another lockdown whilst flights still land, we all knew this would happen after the elections, but dare you state it you will be met with the raging posters calling me a conspiracy theorist!!!

[quote Lurcherloves]@SilverGlitterBaubles that’s very unfair. I think Boris has done a good job with competing considerations to juggle, his gamble ordering all the vaccines paid off and he has learnt from mistakes of unlocking early (having done so last year protect the economy). I don’t think anyone else would have done better in these unprecedented times.[/quote]
You are a fool

It was because of a trade deal.

The variant would have been here regardless.

If it's more transmissible than other strains then if would have dominated India sooner or later, then spread and dominated in other countries. Even if case levels were low overall you'd find it would account for a higher % of the cases (if it's dominant). So it would have got here sooner or later, closing the borders would have delayed the inevitable. Given our vaccination rates I don't see much value in delaying it arriving here but I can imagine a high cost to closing borders.

For the person asking why don't these viruses mutate into less effective/virulent versions... They do. But it follows survival of the fittest principles. New variants that aren't as infectious get out competed so numbers don't grow and it's not reported on. Sometimes you get variants of disease which are highly transmissible but have zero to no symptoms. Those are the ones that really take off as there's no change to people's behaviour and they spread the disease unknowingly. But equally it's not a big deal (in theory) if the disease isn't actually making people very sick.

What I don't understand was why the UK (meaning Scotland, Wales & England but not NI) didn't use the natural protection of being an island to help keep out new variants from wherever.

If I was elected dictator i would have shut of incomers of any sort without any warning. (ok maybe incoming flights already in the air would be allowed but none of this "in 3 days" carp).

And in that I would include UK citizens and all politicians (no special privileges) including all of those in the transport industry. There could have been some way to set up an exchange of lorries or lorry trailers at Calais/Dover etc so that UK residents stay here and their Euro counterparts stay there. Anyone working at a cross over spot would need to be in full hazard gear not just masks and gloves.

Businesses here could have opened up sooner, and life been much more normal while we are being vaccinated.

but I expect few will agree with this as too barbaric. Just channelling my post apocalyptic movie knowledge where they go for zero tolerance to save the world. (& generally win the girl as that always happens too)

@smittenkittten

If viruses mutate, why the hell cant it mutate into something harmless.

It can and in time it probably will. In fact, every time it's passed on to another person it can mutate. It's just that the harmless mutations die out because of the nature of their mutation - either they don't spread as well or they don't make people as ill. It's the nasty variations like the Indian one that people focus on because they are worse, we don't hear about the "good" mutations because they are irrelevant.

Think of it as having a big cellar that you lock a hundred dogs in with water but no food in a "battle royale" style experiment. They will start killing each other to be able to feed, the strongest and most vicious will be the last one standing when you open the cellar again, not the cute little friendly one.

AIUI less harmful variants have the advantage of a host who stays alive. And may, I think, confer some immunity from other variants.

I am no sort of biologist, so could be spouting tosh.

@TheSilveryPussycat Yes that's often true. But there's lots of things a disease vector will be measured against. Mortality rate is just one of them. If a variant had a lower mortality rate and the same transmission rate then it might slowly become dominant over time. However it depends if it can be transmitted before causing mortality. For example if an imaginary disease had 100% mortality rate, but was highly infectious with a long asymptomatic stage then it actually might dominate over a low mortality highly symptomatic disease.

In terms of variants, I keep using the example of shapes. If Covid was a triangle, the first variant would also look like a triangle but with a small difference (say a rounded point on one corner). Over time each new variant would look slightly less like a triangle and slightly more like something else. Eventually the vaccine, which trains your body to recognise what a triangle looks like, will no longer be effective as the dominant variant(s) no longer look enough like triangles.

It's relatively rare that a vaccine goes from high efficacy to zero efficacy over night. While ever variants look 'triangle ish' your body will recognise them. With the added bonus that it will probably also update it's antibodies to add in this new 'triangle ish' shape to its memory if you were infected with a similar variant. Which then potentially gives you some level of protection against other variants that didn't look enough like triangles for the original vaccine to have protected you.

Just to add, this isn't true for really fast evolving diseases. But based on coronavirus mutation rates I'd expect we'll just be given updated Covid vaccines over time. Much like the yearly flu vaccine is updated.

@DadAManger

I hope I don’t give the impression that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Conservative - I am not. But, in all seriousness, should all have voted for Corbyn instead? Do we really think he would have handled this well? Out of options on this. And Starmer could have used PMQ to push the Government on this open border cock-up instead of grilling Boris about his wallpaper and couch and who paid for what first. This is the sort of political issue which is best kept for healthy and successful times surely? Just my opinion of course and the comments made disagreeing are cogent.

I do disagree that it would come in anyway since we are a world economy. I really get this given my work. But I feel the Government have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on this.

Corbyn would have put people before profit. That alone would have made him a better person to have in charge during a pandemic. Rather than the grubby, self serving, thieving , law breaking , uncaring, incompetent bastards we have in charge. Just my opinion of course.