(Covid) To think these recommendations are bonkers?

[NoCharnce]

So the government commission into how to memorialise the Covid pandemic has recommended the government implement “A UK-wide day of reflection should be established and held annually.”

Other recommendations include national memorials (10 sites already identified!), oral histories and museums plus additional funding for local authorities to set up their own memorials.

I can’t be the only one who thinks this is nuts and hope the government ignores the recommendations? I genuinely cannot believe people get paid to produce this crap.

Maybe there should be memorial benches to replace all the seating that was ripped out of our town centres, leaving ugly great tarmac scars.

@Everanewbie

Jesus Christ.

a small percentage of elderly people…

Mate, pregnant woman and new mothers died, people in their 20s and 30s, children with respiratory and neurodevelopmental disorders died

This was not just a few old farts who according to you were worthless.

Yes “vulnerable” comprises a lot of elderly people, but there are also those with very common conditions such as asthma or diabetes, pregnancy….

Some died with no prior history of anything and we were a matter of mutations away from having a significantly higher death rate.

In the summer of 2021 there was still significant likelihood of absolutely dire outcomes such as 20% fatality, limited therapeutics to combat.

I know this because I kept up with reading assessment reports/papers from various universities, governments and NGOs. Rather than relying on tabloids and Facebook.

The reason it was not treated like cold/flu season is because the level of threat was substantially higher and the ability to deal with that threat substantially lower.

A combination of determined effort, money and scientific expertise coupled with sheer luck is what got us through.

I’ve known somebody in their thirties die of a blood clot related to covid infection a month ago.

What the hell is wrong with people.

It’s a vascular disease. Not cold or flu. And we are still to see the longterm health outcomes from this - you can expect to see significantly more respiratory and circulatory health problems in future because after repeated covid infections people will have damage sufficient to their lungs and vasculature so as to lower their threshold for disease development.

@Calistano

Because it is an endemic virus. Duh.

Covid isn't endemic yet.

@Sparklecats

"It’s a vascular disease. Not cold or flu. And we are still to see the longterm health outcomes from this - you can expect to see significantly more respiratory and circulatory health problems in future because after repeated covid infections people will have damage sufficient to their lungs and vasculature so as to lower their threshold for disease development"

+++

Actually it's a respiratory disease not a vascular disease. Yes there are vascular complications it equally there are sensory complications (loss of taste and smell), liver, kidney and brain complications. In the same way as cutting your finger can lead to complications such as tetanus or septicaemia.

However for the vast majority of people Covid is a mild respiratory infection.

www.healthline.com/health/covid-respiratory-or-vascular

However I think the key point here is whether the measures taken against preventing Covid deaths in order to predominantly protect the elderly (92% of Covid deaths were aged 60 or over, 58% were aged 80 or over) will result in a higher death rates across a wider age group from missed diagnosis on cardio and cancer as well as a rise in deaths caused by increased poverty.

It’s actually a vascular and respiratory disease if you read up. You can’t accept the opinion of a single publication.

The key point is that the restrictions were brought in relative to the risk of the virus evolving to become more pathogenic and the healthcare capacity.

Had we had a stable virus with limited scope for dangerous mutation in smaller outbreaks, with plenty of healthcare capacity I would probably agree with you.

But we didn’t.

@Sparklecats

"Had we had a stable virus with limited scope for dangerous mutation in smaller outbreaks, with plenty of healthcare capacity I would probably agree with you.

But we didn’t"

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Exactly the same argument could be used for flu each winter but we don't shut down the country every winter because there isn't the same level of mass hysteria.

I was told by the government that restrictions were in place to manage hospital capacity, not because of some doomsday scenario where a pandemic coronavirus suddenly mutates to the same threat level as the great plague.

Respiratory, vascular, whatever. When my great-grandmother in law survived it in 2020 alongside her entire nursing home, I realised it was time we stopped wetting are pants as this was not the Antonine Plague of 165AD.

Same here. Not sure why that extra threat got added

@Everanewbie just because the residents in your GGMIL’s home survived unscathed does not mean this is was universal - far from it.

Perhaps the home had adequate staffing levels, good infection control and management in general, compliance from visitors etc.

A relative of mine and 4 others in their home died within a month of unvaccinated bank workers bringing covid in. The regular staff were totally traumatised as they had done everything they could to follow guidance to the letter and were massively let down by outside staff.

It is not a matter of just surviving it, there is damage, repeatedly if you get it multiple times, that can compromise your overall health and put you at risk of disease development secondary to the covid infection. Studies have shown that those who were in infected in the first waves would likely be the most adversely affected long term but we won’t see the full disease burden of this until further down the line.

It was really well publicised about the potential danger of new variants. With the rate of cases they had and the threat of the problem getting worse they had to preserve hospital capacity and prevent the nhs from getting overwhelmed.

All of the information regarding this was freely available, but you would likely only go looking for the detail of it if from an academic/scientific background. Joe bloggs is probably not going to be bothered reading several 50pg reports and updates every week.

This paper for example from 2021 was written about in most newspapers and obviously published on gov website as is by sage and discusses the possible evolutionary trajectories, their likelihood and control measures.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007566/S1335_Long_term_evolution_of_SARS-CoV-2.pdf

I studied SARS and MERS so maybe would have been more aware of the underlying reasons for restrictions and control measures… but do remember there being clear information regarding current threat, potential threat and healthcare capacity in relation to these.

@Sparklecats

"A relative of mine and 4 others in their home died within a month of unvaccinated bank workers bringing covid in"

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Look the Covid vaccine doesn't prevent you catching or transmitting the Covid virus, it simply means that if you do get Covid then the symptoms are less severe and your chances of dying are therefore lower. So whether the bank workers were vaccinated or not it wouldn't have made much difference, if they had tested themselves before hand then that would have made more sense.

@Sparklecats - I honestly think it would be better if you did what everyone is doing namely quietly admit to yourself that we panicked, blindly followed rules and embarrassingly all got a bit swept up in the mass hysteria and that the best thing to do now is to try and forget about it and pretend it never happened.

That is because flu has been circulating for years and there would be some level of immunity both via vaccination and natural immunity to protect the population to some extent even if you had a variant emerge that caused more severe or widespread illness it would unlikely be so genetically distinct so as to overcome all immune defence.

Covid-19 by contrast was a novel virus with high transmissibility, released upon a naive population of 8 billion, giving it a free for all to evolve quickly… considering fatality rates of 10-35% in SARS and MERS which are closely related, the transmissibility and complete lack of immunity in the global population caution was required.

Failings, so far as I am concerned, were a lack of pandemic preparedness, lack of investment in research and development, and lack of cohesion across government departments which made the formulation and implementation of control measures difficult and somewhat shambolic.

There was plenty of notice something like this was going to happen, the plans should have been ready made and good to go to protect us and give as little disruption as possible.

I would hope and suspect that following the inquiry and enormous expense that they will be in future.

Hillarious thread!
Agree, ridiculous suggestion from our government. Not surprising. Money to burn.
An annual comedy show would be more appropriate.

The vaccine doesn’t just prevent you from having more severe symptoms. Unvaccinated are 20x more likely to pass on infection. For a vaccinated person you can expect to see peak viral load shedding fall within a day, whereas unvaccinated it’s much longer so the viral load transmitted to those in close proximity is much greater and more likely to cause others serious harm.

Apparently the girls were at an all night rave (obviously against restrictions), then they came into the home. Hard to know if they would have faked their tests but they should never have been there in the first place.

I’m sorry to tell you but my background as a biologist won’t allow me to think that, because I didn’t follow rules blindly… I read around the data as much as I could to communicate what was going on to my family, some of whom like you were doubtful. From what I read at the time there really wasn’t anyway around implementing restrictions.

It was an extraordinary situation, bud sadly one that we will be getting more used to emergence of diseases from wildlife is escalating. So it is important to remember and learn lessons from the experience. So that we might prepare for future outbreaks of novel diseases, potentially pandemics.

If you look at Asia they are experiencing things like this pretty frequently, that is coming our way.

@Sparklecats

"It was an extraordinary situation, bud sadly one that we will be getting more used to emergence of diseases from wildlife is escalating. So it is important to remember and learn lessons from the experience. So that we might prepare for future outbreaks of novel diseases, potentially pandemics."

++++

One point I think we can agree on is that future new viruses / diseases will have a more serious impact in terms of death tolls as the population next time will be much less likely to follow the rules or take it seriously - that is until it is too late.

@Sparklecats

"I would hope and suspect that following the inquiry and enormous expense that they will be in future."

++++

The Covid enquiry has so far spent £40 million after hearing just 23 days of evidence. The legal fees so far for the 62 assisting lawyers has cost almost £14 million.

That is a possibility we have to give very serious consideration to.

Totally bonkers. And it's the great British public who will be paying for it,I presume?

I think it's fine, there's lots of lessons to be learnt from covid and lockdown I don't think we should forget about it otherwise it was all for nothing.

@Slothmoth
@ALongHardWinter

Yes the taxpayer is paying for the inquiry. Given the first 23 days of the inquiry has cost £40 million and it is not due to finish until 2026 I think the Covid inquiry will easily end up being the most expensive Government inquiry ever.

So will all this be proved if we are compelled to have an annual silence?

One of my strongest memories of Lockdown 1 is having no knowledge of this (working my arse off in a stressful job from home while trying to look after a 5 year old so barely on SM, didn't have freeview etc so not watching news etc) and going for a short walk then everyone started coming out clapping (also setting of fireworks- it was still fucking light FFS) etc and it felt like I was being applauded for going for walk. Only when I was home and my husband said, ah right OK then. Surreal!!

Perhaps we should just pay them more and have made sure they had the correct PPE, that might have made them feel more appreciated...God this country sometimes!

Well no @1dayatatime you can expect the death toll to be higher because we may have a major outbreak of a hemorrhagic fever virus.

And I suspect they will be preparing army support and the like to deal with that scenario and will have lockdown conditions where fatality is >10% sewn up. So good luck with this idea of rule breaking in the event of a major outbreak with high pathogenicity 👍

@1dayatatime

The cost to us if we fuck up pandemic preparedness in future is potentially billions and complete economic collapse.

I consider the above quotation to be a pretty cheap quote to avert future disaster.

@WestwardHo1

To my mind the suggestions serve 3 purposes

1. give some closure to relatives of the deceased - particularly when they often did not get to say goodbye to loved ones etc and blame the gov… this is the gov doing “something” to recognise the loss.

2. keep the pandemic in the public psyche because the spectre of further disease outbreaks - and more serious disease at that - is looming and the public being lulled into total relaxation isn’t going to help manage them in future/help them survive.

3. funnel some money towards R&D and increasing cohesion between scientists and gov, which is hugely important to avoid cock ups.