To think restrictions won't back?

[covidwoewoe]

Wfh and masks I am fine with.

But the thought of restrictions like closing things and limits on socialising is causing me serious upset.

Trying so hard to live in the here and now but I hate the uncertainty.

[quote covidwoewoe]@CherryBlossomWinter France had nearly 40k cases a day in April when we had something like 1,000. People are so quick to bash the UK.[/quote]
Yes.

We are also living with virtually no restrictions, unlike the rest of Europe.

@Northernlurker

Hospitals are overwhelmed with demand but it's not Covid demand

This is correct. It’s other issues that people can’t get to see a GP about amongst other things.

@beigebrownblue

I hate to say this, but from a scan of the news in the last hour it seems rates are highest in young people up to 18 and several local authorities are reintroducing bubbles and masks in schools.

These should have always remained.

But add any kind of covid surge and the hospitals will go pop.

I think as a min. We will get
Masks back
2m social distancing
Possibly 'fire breakers' week before Xmas holiday for school
Wfh if possible across the board.

Why the shops got rid of the screens and things in the super markets is beyond me.

Some remained but seems nuts to remove stuff that can't do anyone any harm

@arethereanyleftatall sorry to hear about your stepfather. Im not sure its so simple as saying his death wasnt due to COVID, covid infection is shown to produce worse outcomes (ie higher death rates) across a whole range of conditions even if it's not the primary cause of death.

My dmum died from covid last month, had two jabs and was a few days off her booster (she worked in health care).
I don't know, at this point I think you will either be lucky or unlucky whether you are jabbed or wear face masks etc etc.
She wore masks and full ppe, would never step foot in a pub or a crowded place. Just very very unlucky x

People saying they ‘don’t want to wear masks again’ when we know masks have a limiting effect on transmission blow my mind with their selfishness

This. It's a cheap and easy way to protect one another.

@gardeninggirl68

cases rising means more filling hospital beds! that, along with general flu, will put NHS into crisis....again

of course a rise in positive cases will have impact!

And last week, hospital bed occupancy in England was at 98.5%. (I’ve just been reading a thread about in on Twitter, RTed by Prof Christina Pagel).

So yes, the rise in cases will put the NHS in danger of being overwhelmed. There is barely any spare capacity now.

The masks ship has sailed. I was in London last weekend. Used the tube several times, absolutely rammed and mask wearing was, at best, about 50%.

Realistically though there is going to be very little spare bed capacity in the NHS for years as they try to play catch up. That's not just due to COVID but about the knock on effect COVID has had on everything else.

It won't just be about covid it will be about all the other respiratory viruses taking off and creating overall pressure

I think there will be reintroduction of some restrictions this side of Xmas as others have said , maybe vaccine passports, and maybe a short lockdown in the new year but hopefully a lockdown lite, like the one from nov 20

Assuming we don't get another variant, as that messes up everything

Maybe some restrictions will return. Masks, screens in supermarkets, “WFH if you can”(they still have this in Wales). Things that don’t have an economic impact I guess, light-touch things that people will comply with. I don’t imagine for a minute that people will desist from seeing friends and relatives in their homes, for example - those days have gone.

@CarbonMonoxideParty

There’s growing evidence that screens did not help at all and if anything may actually have made things worse by reducing air circulation.

@MrsTulipTattsyrup

Less than 4% of beds are occupied by covid patients!

@MrsTulipTattsyrup

"And last week, hospital bed occupancy in England was at 98.5%"

What is it usually though? Very high I'd imagine.

[quote GreenLakes]@CarbonMonoxideParty

There’s growing evidence that screens did not help at all and if anything may actually have made things worse by reducing air circulation.[/quote]

Please share a link to the evidence.
@GreenLakes

I didn't say they helped anyway -I don't care either way. My point was that everything was removed like covid had gone away 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[quote GreenLakes]@MrsTulipTattsyrup

Less than 4% of beds are occupied by covid patients![/quote]
That doesn’t matter! If we have a sudden spike in covid patients needing beds, there just aren’t enough to accommodate them.

So we should be taking better measures now.

@MrsTulipTattsyrup

Restrictions this winter will mean that hospitals will be overwhelmed by flu cases next winter due to lack of immunity.

We need to get through this winter by using vaccines and making sure NHS staff can be deployed where they’re needed across the country.

[quote GreenLakes]@MrsTulipTattsyrup

Restrictions this winter will mean that hospitals will be overwhelmed by flu cases next winter due to lack of immunity.

We need to get through this winter by using vaccines and making sure NHS staff can be deployed where they’re needed across the country.[/quote]
Unless there’s a plan for redeployment already in place, then there’s not enough time to make that happen. The wheels of these things move slowly and we are talking about uprooting people, not bits of machinery.

Some small measures to help control spread (especially in schools where numbers are shocking) could avoid the need for that much emergency intervention, and the risk that people will die because there’s nowhere and nobody to care for them when they need it.

I’m interested in your intelligence about next year’s anticipated flu epidemic. Can I have a source? I’m not an epidemiologist so I have to try my best to rely on good scientific sources.

[quote arethereanyleftatall]@CherryBlossomWinter

Where are you getting your facts from? We're not the hardest hit in Europe at all. No where near it.

We have more cases simply because we're testing more.

But our deaths pp is lower than many, which is surely the relevant figure? Especially given that we're including anyone who died of something else, if they happened to have covid too; and many countries aren't.

My stepfather has just died, of diabetes leading to infection and septicaemia. He had covid too in the last few days, that will go down as 1, and yet his death wasn't due to covid. [/quote]
Facts from credible sources. See the pictures. UK is one of the few dark red places in the world. UK compared to Europe on deaths is starkly above almost all. So this shows that compared to our neighbours, we are doing very, very badly on cases, deaths, everything. And that we don’t need to be this bad, it is decision making that has made it this way, and decision making that could lower our rates. We don’t have to just sit there and defend the indefensible, with dodgy thinking not based on facts.

Where are you getting facts from such as low deaths PP? I’m sorry about your step father, but your one anecdotal account doesn’t mean all covid deaths are incorrect. Getting the truth is incredibly important.

DS1's secondary school has asked for daily LFTs for the rest of the week due to the high number of positive tests this weekend. They are also 'strongly advising' students to wear masks again, though I doubt most will wear them unless they have to.

It will be interesting to see if October gives a little break to slow transmission a bit.

Greenlakes redeployed across the country? No thanks that isn't in my job description and I doubt many nhs staff would be happy to do that when we have commitments at home

There have been queues out in the cold in several A & E depts for a while now.

You sure that isn't just people waiting for their family or friend to come out? I had to take a family member to A&E last week, and they won't let people in to wait with someone unless it's with a child. It was a Saturday night and the waiting room wasn't even half full, but outside was full of relatives hanging about.

Restrictions never went away in Scotland

We still have compulsory masks, and social distance, and remote learning for students (DS in first year has in-person classes at Uni three times only between september and christmas), we have vaccine passports, and work at home messages, and public information broadcasts about socialising outside, and those QR codes to scan when you go into places, and making appointments to get into places...