‘We are all going to get it eventually’ nonsense

[Redolent]

Why do people keep repeating this as though it’s a statement of fact? It’s not. This approach aka gradual herd immunity would lead to 100,000’s of deaths over time and was clearly been rejected by the government in March.

The alternative recommended by WHO and soon to be followed in the UK is ‘test test test’, contract tracing, quarantining. The point is to get the R sufficiently low so as to make that possible.

The countries and regions with the lowest death rates are those that have pursued relentless community testing.

‘Living with the virus’ doesn’t mean making your peace with the fact that we’re all going to get it. It means accepting that we’ll be treading the line between social distancing measures and economic/ social stability for some time.

They are just starting to talk about possibly quarantining people arriving in the UK. Grant Shapps was discussing it on Marr this morning.

I guess it depends, if it is found that vaccinations are not effective then realistically over the course of the next few decades a load of us will get it. However, people that seem to be keen to get it to 'get it over with as we are all going to get it' and using it as an excuse to do whatever are next level stupid.

Well said OP!

Totally agree OP and thanks for posting

Agree OP. I want to avoid it for as long as poss.

The reason people think this is because the messaging from the government has been poor. The message that was originally delivered was that we needed to flatten the curve to prevent the nhs being overwhelmed. There was a bit of a mention of herd immunity too. The impression given was that we would all get it but we couldn’t get it all at once.

Then we switched to lots of talk about how it was absolutely, definitely too early to even start to think about anything post lockdown (whilst BJ was unwell and nobody could really make any decisions).

As soon as BJ was back we’ve immediately swung into exit talk and it’s pretty clear that the plan is essentially one of mass suppression.

That has actually been fairly obvious for weeks (otherwise they wouldn’t have started with the app and recruiting the contact tracers) but because they refused point blank to discuss anything the message hadn’t got across.

I suspect as the app/contract tracing/end to lockdown plan becomes clearer this week more people will shift their thinking.

OP, I think people (including myself) have said that because they don’t trust the government to test and contact trace.

I think they’re aiming for herd immunity which probably doesn’t exist and making it look like they care.

With their callousness or incompetence. Whichever. We do all stand a very high chance of catching this virus in the near future.

@eeeyoresmiles, an intelligent and well thought through post. Thank you

OP, I think people (including myself) have said that because they don’t trust the government to test and contact trace.

In terms of contact tracing it's not just up to the government it's up to all of us. I don't mean everybody should download the app. The app will be useful if enough people use it but it will never be the whole answer and there are valid data protection concerns.

One very simple thing we could all be doing now is just keeping a note of where we go and when. What time and day did you go in which supermarket and what time did you leave? What time did you go out exercising and what route did you take? If you have to take public transport which bus or train did you catch? To be effective the bulk of contact tracing will need to be done by human beings and you'll be giving them a head start if you can provide a reasonably accurate basic itinerary for the last 14 days.

Track and trace is a very new policy. Before that it was flatten the curve, which suggests that the same number of people would get it as if nothing was done, just over a longer time. So not everyone getting it, but plenty. Just not all at once.