The way the Tory government are acting now makes it feel like all the lockdowns were a waste of time

[Poetrypatty]

Just lifting all the restrictions as if it was all a waste of time. It makes me feel like a mug for everything we went through, especially as they were having their parties and not even following the rules. I think it's bad for peoples mental health as well.

It wasn't a waste of time as its saved lots of lives. The time wasters are the ones who haven't been vaccinated or following the rules. We'd have been a lot further forward then.

. I fully get that Covid measures need to end at some point but I just want some honesty and rational as to when that point should be because it is most definitely not the death rate.

If it is because everyone is a bit fed up then at least be honest with the CEV and elderly and look them in the eye saying sorry "we recognise that we are throwing you under a bus but we've had enough of Covid measures".

THIS

"The issue is the next variant may not be milder."

If you were very, very, very cynical, you could almost think that was actually the plan...but I'm sure our lovely, caring government hasn't ever even contemplated that.

Anyway, looks like they're going to have a cosy little conflict any day now in Ukraine (I'm using cosy ironically, obviously, but it is just the right distance away to not be too upsetting while they're all quaffing and snouting at their clubs). There's ample opportunity for willy-waving, posed selfies in front of stunning, colourful Russian architecture, and "banging the drum for Jingo". The way things appear to be going, he'll be able to cosplay as Churchill and/or Thatcher to his heart's content for a bit...

Not quite so sure what he's going to do when the revelations start tumbling out about who's actually been bankrolling the Tories and/or propping up so much of the London real estate market these last few decades, but I'm sure the press will think of a nice little cover story for them to convince the party faithful.

(You'll have gathered I don't trust anything that comes out of any government gob or other orifice. I don't trust any of their motives either when it comes to those of us who aren't dripping with money and power.)

@Chasingaftermidnight

Do we know what will happen with people who work in care homes and in healthcare? Will they just go to work with Covid or will they continue to test?

They got sacked, not to worry though

@praying4

. I fully get that Covid measures need to end at some point but I just want some honesty and rational as to when that point should be because it is most definitely not the death rate.

If it is because everyone is a bit fed up then at least be honest with the CEV and elderly and look them in the eye saying sorry "we recognise that we are throwing you under a bus but we've had enough of Covid measures".

THIS

Yep. Agree

@OhWhyNot

labyrinthlaziness if the next variant isn’t mild then restrictions can be put in place. It was all die very swiftly before abs can be again as time goes on people will be more resistant to having restrictions put on them

We can’t live life on a possible issue that we may not have to face

We are dismantling our defences too early.

It is being done to appease the right wing Tory MPs and also because Johnson is desperate for covid to be over before he (potentially) gets a FPN for partying during lockdown.

The fact Javid was opposed is interesting - Javid knows how this will impact the NHS and the planned surgery catch up.

@Poetrypatty

You have to use common sense . If I ever had a bad cold or flu I would not get near older relatives or young babies

But I thought the whole point was that you don't tend to get those without symptoms, whereas covid can be asymptomatic hence the tests.

I think people who can't afford to buy tests should be given them if they want some.

I know the lockdowns did have a point to them, what I was getting at is it just feels as if we have all been taken for a ride a lot -eg if you've just stayed in self isolating two weeks ago and now that's no longer a thing. Same as how lockdowns were oh so important, except not for the PM who wasn't even doing it.

One thing from this thread is though that he's divided people and improved his popularity a bit, and that's why I think he's suddenly dropped every measure, that and bringing on board some Tories who might have been wavering against him, not because of public health or scientific advice. I don't see why that's not obvious to everyone.

You can get flu asymptotically. It's just no one tests for it so you don't know.

According to this www.westernsussexhospitals.nhs.uk/news/know-77-people-flu-no-symptoms-can-still-pass/ it's a high percentage who may have it asymptotically.

Covid is not unique in that regard.

£2 billion a month is insane, especially as a lot don't take the tests properly, don't follow up even if positive, and I expect lots have some at the back of a cupboard never to be used. Being sensible should have worked for this too- the people doing multiple tests when they have a positive and are waiting for a PCR result back just to check, nurseries etc that made their own rules and insisted on babies being tested every time they came in, people who took them everyday for...well no reason at all (not including those recommended to), venues asking for proof of a negative tests but accepting a photo on a phone that could be anyone's which rendered the whole thing pointless. Also employers that don't care about staff enough to offer sick pay aren't going to be rushing to push for their staff to continue to test; its disruptive to business. This was also a huge issue before covid, why weren't people bothered about it then? People going in when really poorly, illness pushing them closer to the poverty line and having to ration food that month- the list goes on. Were people ignorant to this before or are they more worried about covid ergo bothered now as it potentially affects them more? The real crime is that its not a legal requirement to have to provide sick pay to staff for every business.

I do find it quite incredible that with deaths running at about 1000 per week and 10,000 in hospital, we all think CV has gone away and is just another mild winter illness or even like Flu.

1,000 deaths per week due to Covid. 12,000 deaths per week due to other causes

oh well thats all right then, what does it matter if more die, will still be less than from other causes.

If LFT tests are really costing £2 billion per month, then yet again, the govt has let itself be ripped off, which nothing new for them.

@Alexandra2001

Yes if testing is really costing £2bn a month taxpayers are being ripped off. Who benefits from that I wonder?

If LFT tests are really costing £2 billion per month, then yet again, the govt has let itself be ripped off, which nothing new for them.

We send the ones we manufacture abroad as we can make more money from selling them than it costs us to buy some we sourced from abroad. Its not just the tests, it's the website, the next day delivery and the logistics- the amount required for the rules as were for the population of this country plus people being ridiculous with them is what has totalled up to 2 billion. I'm not a fan of Boris, they have made tonnes of unforgivable fuck ups, but same with the NHS, as its free at point of use people don't have a clue how much stuff costs.

If it is because everyone is a bit fed up then at least be honest with the CEV and elderly and look them in the eye saying sorry "we recognise that we are throwing you under a bus but we've had enough of Covid measures"

Throwing vulnerable people under the bus because we had other priorities is what we've spent the last two years doing, thanks to restrictions. It just hasn't been spelled out. So if we're looking vulnerable people in the eye and explaining now, there's going to be quite a backlog to get through.

@Poetrypatty

Unfortunately it will mean those in the lowest income groups feeling they have to go to work however ill they are, as they need the money. Consequently they become more ill, and the consequences that go with it.

Likewise people won't be able to afford the tests. People can't afford food or heating ffs. They're not going to splash £20 for these, they just won't be able to.

When will people learn that 2022 covid is NOT the same beast as 2020 covid. You wouldn't test all the time for a common cold so why this. Just get on with your lives and stop this nonsense. You don't need to fork out for tests because you don't need to test. Just like you don't for all the other mild virus'

@ogel don’t forget you have to factor that 2bil against the cost of contact isolations and infected isolations previously.

We’ve just come through a peak of Omicron and advice to test for seven days as a contact and people testing to release early from day 5 of infections. Regardless of whether you agree with that tactic personally or not I don’t like the way this figure has been presented as something that indicates peoples wastefulness rather than following government policy (which you would hope someone sat down and did the projected figures for before they implemented it).

When will people learn that 2022 covid is NOT the same beast as 2020 covid. You wouldn't test all the time for a common cold so why this. Just get on with your lives and stop this nonsense. You don't need to fork out for tests because you don't need to test. Just like you don't for all the other mild virus

@ImprobablePuffin when will people learn that for CEV people covid is, if not the same, a very similar beast to 2020 Covid?

We can't rely on vaccines, and now we won't have the reassurance that people will be isolating if ill. The latter is fine - as long as we have access to free LFTs, which have been our first line of defence. Without them, we're a bit fucked.

We do need to test and we can't 'get on with our lives'.

If LFT tests are really costing £2 billion per month, then yet again, the govt has let itself be ripped off, which nothing new for them

They probably are in that region but official advice could be reduced to scrap seven day contact testing and only use if symptomatic. Tbh I think it needs to be that anyway since some covid treatments rely on starting early on in the infection and there’s people that would be useful for that don’t qualify as CV/CEV. There’s an NHS trial that’s going to find themselves short of participants without community access to testing for one.

It has been 2 years!! How long do you want covid to be the only thing we focus on?

People who believe lockdowns saved lives are so badly fooled, it’s unreal. Lockdowns had a marginal impact on mortality, John Hopkins study is the latest to show this.
But lockdowns will cost millions of lives on this country alone in this country alone - from poor mental health, poor educational outcomes for children whose life chances are permanently damaged due to school closures, peoples standard of living impacted by the rampant inflation caused by money printing the world over.

@Lazypuppy

You can still get testibg i'm sure, you just have to pay for it, as it should be now after 2 years.

Sick pay, work for a company who offers good sick pay, as plenty of people tried to do before covid. There are other illnesses other than covid

So glib. I'm alright Jack. People can't afford food / heating, let alone tests. And of course everyone would like sick pay but only 19% get it.

@Bollindger

I was just listening to a person talking about Lockdown, 17,000 people actually died of Covid, not WITH covid, and the average age was 80, also flu deaths were down by oh about 17,000. Sweden did no lockdown and their figures, get this the same as ours. So was it worth it?

I wouldnt say that's a good argument for was the locks owns necessary.

Sweden have a population of 10million. Britain is around 70million. So Sweden looks way worse for having had the same amount of deaths as us.

I thought all the scientists and health workers were saying this is a bad idea anyway? Guess we will find out won't we?

[quote Cornettoninja]@ogel don’t forget you have to factor that 2bil against the cost of contact isolations and infected isolations previously.

We’ve just come through a peak of Omicron and advice to test for seven days as a contact and people testing to release early from day 5 of infections. Regardless of whether you agree with that tactic personally or not I don’t like the way this figure has been presented as something that indicates peoples wastefulness rather than following government policy (which you would hope someone sat down and did the projected figures for before they implemented it).[/quote]
People have been wasteful as well, either through organisations making up their own rules and them having to comply to access services or by whatever you want to call it. Of course not all of them, but probably countered in part by the people who were supposed to test and didn't bother.

@Bollindger - also Sweden is not as densely populated, there's more space. Not comparable.

@BoldMove

It wasn't a waste of time as its saved lots of lives. The time wasters are the ones who haven't been vaccinated or following the rules. We'd have been a lot further forward then.

Oh god the naivety.

@LadyMuckOfCowshitFarm

When will people learn that 2022 covid is NOT the same beast as 2020 covid. You wouldn't test all the time for a common cold so why this. Just get on with your lives and stop this nonsense. You don't need to fork out for tests because you don't need to test. Just like you don't for all the other mild virus

@ImprobablePuffin when will people learn that for CEV people covid is, if not the same, a very similar beast to 2020 Covid?

We can't rely on vaccines, and now we won't have the reassurance that people will be isolating if ill. The latter is fine - as long as we have access to free LFTs, which have been our first line of defence. Without them, we're a bit fucked.

We do need to test and we can't 'get on with our lives'.

I apologise. My comment was written quickly and not well thought out.

What I mean is, pre covid people who are vulnerable (of which I am one) could t test or be vaccinated for mild virus' so whatever we did before covid to protect ourselves is what we should be doing now. It's not everyone else's responsibility to look after me.
And also I didn't acknowledge that of course some people will have to test regularly for work etc but will those rules change if people can't access tests I wonder.

I don't think I ever did get confirmation of another country where they were provided for free, but you always had to pay in France, Spain and ROI (the ones I happen to know).

In Germany LFT are free as are PCR if you are sent for one (AFAIK) they stopped being free last year at some point, but were reintroduced when the next wave arrived.

TBH because i have a lovely middle class laptop wfh job, i didn't find the lockdowns here that onerous. Lucky me.

I think we all need to take a bit of a step back, a deep breath and look at what we are actually going to do. One thing the pandemic may finally have driven home is that it is utterly ridiculous, unless you really can't avoid it, to have any illness and walk around blithely spreading it.

If the reason that you can't avoid doing that is because you have a job that doesn't have good sick pay - we really ought to ask ourselves, as a society, if that is really what we want? Forcing low paid workers to a) work while sick and b) spread an infection unnecessarily for want of better terms and conditions.

One of the other things is things like the health service. People were still going to A&E for literal A&E events, and were seen quicker. Maybe we need to consider why so many people use A&E for non A&E cases and overhaul not only the NHS (or wherever you are) but also our attitude to health. And sometimes a bit of self-help can go a long way.

And if we have to go out and about while sick (colds, flu, D&V whatever) maybe it isn't too much to ask that we wear a mask? As pp have repeatedly pointed out, this is standard in many countries, there is no reason why it couldn't take off in Europe.

The precariousness of many jobs/industries has been thrown into relief. As have supply chain issues. Maybe having all manufacturing in one region (mostly Asia) isn't as good as we thought it was. Our rates of consumption are something always worth thinking about.

Early on in the pandemic in so many places there were real instances of excellent community support, it would be a shame if that completely vanished. There were some real instances of appallingly selfish, profiteering behaviour. We know who they were. I hope they feel real consequences of that.

The pandemic was always going to move to endemic at some point. Maybe we're there, maybe not yet (maybe we already passed it) but what we need to do is not react to things like this in extreme ways. We also need to realise that if you got a letter saying "you are CEV STAY HOME OR YOU'LL DIE" (or words to that effect) it's not something that everyone can simply put behind them because some wild-haired chap said it on TV. A bit of empathy goes a long way.

I would also hope that in countries where governments were shown to be a bit cronyish, and not obeying their own rules, the people voting in the next government bear that in mind when they go to the polling stations.

What we have now is a bit like a post-war period. How we handle that up is up to us. But turning on each other and implying that people who don't agree with you are idiots isn't going to end well, is it?