Does anyone know what time Whitty and Valance are on?

[Autumnsthemostwonderfultime]

Does anyone know what time? Interested to hear what they're going to say.

@BarefootHippieChick

I thought it was very clear and concise, tbh I stopped watching any kind of briefings months ago. Most interesting for me was the pointing out of walking a very thin line between having to close everything again and the risk to the economy and mental health, or keeping things open and possibly thousands dying or ending up with serious long term health issues. I think sometimes the general public forget just how hard it is for the people in charge to make these decisions, knowing they're going to be lambasted whatever they do. (And believe me, I'm no fan of politicians or the PM but I really wouldn't want to be in their shoes.)

IME Whitty/Vallance/other scientists in front of select committees is a much better way to work out what’s going on than the press briefings.

I don’t think there was anything particularly new in that but it was probably the clearest they’ve been and I thought they did a good job in trying to address some of the things, such as the virus being weaker, that have been circulating on social media.

kicking it down line is fine - it buys more time, and moves us out of winer

@The80sweregreat

Alec, anymore restrictions will be to protect the NHS again. Which makes it hard if people won't do it or all just think it's one big conspiracy as they did it all properly last time and don't think they should again.

The NHS are up against it now ( as they every winter ) and they must also be praying for a vaccine.

Most of us are done already. If Covid is rife in the hospital and we're expected to deal with all that again and try to keep some normal winter service going - everyone in the population is screwed - covid and non covid. I'll be handing my notice in this time round.

@AlecTrevelyan006

So, basically everything hinges on a vaccine. They’ve confirmed that lockdowns don’t eradicate the virus and only kick the problem further down the line.

Once the prevalence has built up again a lockdown is a blunt instrument to shrink the prevalence down again when you don't have an adequate test trace and isolate system to reduce prevalence in a targeted way.

If you let the virus get way out of control like we did earlier on the year it causes huge disruption.

If you pounce on it early enough you can avoid the big disruptions.

Adequate Test Trace and Isolate would be miles better.

But since we still don't have that, pouncing on it with short lockdowns will have to do.

@Waspnest

11 and they’re going to say - stop acting like selfish twats.

I would love it if one of them actually used those words.

Wouldn't be in the mess we're in now if they did say that tbf.

@Bulblasagne

kicking it down line is fine - it buys more time, and moves us out of winer

I don't know how people still don't understand this.

Are we not trying to find out more about the virus and hopefully come up with some viable treatments/vaccines, so hopefully if we can get through this winter season there may be treatments available next winter and we can then treat it like we do flu. We do have to accept it isn't going away at the moment and probably isn't for some time. But to just let it run its course this winter may have tragic consequences like the second wave of the 1918 pandemic.

Although can someone explain how the 1918 flu pandemic went away, is it just that some flu strains seem to thrive in winter season?

@Roussette

I'd like to see exponential curves explained on every news programme and This Morning and Loose Women etc Yes yes yes And maybe tell the likes of Denise Welch to stop underplaying it, her tweets need to come with a public health warning.

Yes. The conspiracy theorists have got her. That kind of misinformation combined with her platform is extremely dangerous in a pandemic.

Ok we've had the science now, we're clear with the fact it's coming back, we're clear that we need to do our bit and act like grown ups.

I guess the next bit is what Boris suggests we do next.

Hoping they'll tell people going to work to WFH if they can do

Please ban unnecessary international travel and people coming into the country for the winter

Totally agree Chavvy
I get she's suffered with her MH and wants to help those with problems during lockdown, but her tweets were becoming positively dangerous IMHO.
We don't need slebs telling everyone to more or less ignore advice and carry on as if covid didn't exist.

Only other time was when the ‘head nurse’ (that wasn’t her title) spoke and she was then silenced for the next press briefing I seem to remember.
She and Jonathon Van Tam wouldn't "agree" with Dom Cum eye test and haven't been on a briefing since

@Roussette

Totally agree Chavvy I get she's suffered with her MH and wants to help those with problems during lockdown, but her tweets were becoming positively dangerous IMHO. We don't need slebs telling everyone to more or less ignore advice and carry on as if covid didn't exist.

But I don’t see how it helps anyone with mental health. Pretending the situation doesn’t exist doesn’t help anyone, and I suspect makes things a lot worse. As someone with long term MH issues, I can’t imagine any MH professional suggesting ignoring a problem.

The situation is rubbish, there’s not much I can do about that. But what I can do is to use everything I’ve been taught to try and safeguard my mental health as much as possible.

When is Boris on, Thursday?

Rafals Yes absolutely.

Boris on tomorrow I think.

Does anyone know WHEN Johnson is on tomorrow?

I've just seen on Sky news, lunchtime tomorrow from the Commons

thanks @Thismummyruns

kicking it down line is fine - it buys more time, and moves us out of winter

This. Lockdown was never going to eradicate the virus. The purpose of lockdown was to keep it under control to protect the NHS and other services. We always knew that cases would rise once rules were relaxed and things started opening up again.

As hard as it is, people need to accept that kicking it down the line is all we really have until a vaccine is available.

Why isn't he doing restrictions now then if the situation is so dire?
Really irritates me they give hints of what's going to happen then take a week to enforce it. Even then they give a from this date this will happen, it's never right unless we do this now we are fucked

@Washimal

kicking it down line is fine - it buys more time, and moves us out of winter

This. Lockdown was never going to eradicate the virus. The purpose of lockdown was to keep it under control to protect the NHS and other services. We always knew that cases would rise once rules were relaxed and things started opening up again.

As hard as it is, people need to accept that kicking it down the line is all we really have until a vaccine is available.

We have Test Trace and Isolate, the cornerstone of any infectious disease response.

Well we don't.

But we could have.