Whitty saying we'll still have restrictions next winter

[bathsh3ba]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55542393

Fan-fucking-tastic. And I don't swear. Honestly don't know how I'm going to get through this.

I've made no secret of my dislike for lockdowns and restrictions but even I can see that CW didnt say what the OP is suggesting.

I heard it as once the 15 million elderly/CEV are vaccinated we can gradually lift rules, much like much of the country did in summer. If winter needs measures, IF, my bet would be something like facemasks and WFH where possible. Not everything shut like this year.

I swear, the doom mongers on here need to get a fucking grip! Plus, this isnt happening because "people aren't following the rules" its fucking happening because it's a bloody virus doing what it's designed to do. And whilst a large proportion of people may not like or even agree with restrictions out of the 66 million people in this country I expect the vast VAST majority are abiding by them. A virus is doing what it does best, spreading. The fact it mutated to be more transmissable shows we had it on the run and its had to evolve to survive. But usually more transmissable means less deadly and the numbers seem to support this.

Eventually we will learn to live with it like we live with flu and a whole host of other illnesses that can be deadly to some but not most.

Calm the fuck down!!

We groan at the journalists' questions.

@CrocodilesCry

He was really clear that the virus should do the "heavy lifting" or at least "most of the heavy lifting" to stop the spread.

But he did add that as the virus is suited to spreading in winter (like other respiratory viruses) that there may be some need for other curbs.
But that hopefully vaccinations would be enough.

It's really clear what he said and nobody should be catastrophising.

He was really clear that the vaccine should do the "heavy lifting" or at least "most of the heavy lifting" to stop the spread.

Should have said ^^

But I can see people just aren't listening and blowing this up into something it isn't.

Plus let's not forget even if we estimate 10 million people have had the virus since March that does not mean 10 million have it right now and still means approx 56 MILLION people havent caught it.

Fuck I had it over xmas, shared a bed with DH, hung about with the kids and none of them caught it. It's really not as scary as people think and isnt hiding around every corner or in the grubby little mitts of every child.

But please, dont let facts get in the way of a bit of classic mumsnet exaggeration and paranoia.

@ItsNotGreenItsBlue please hang in there. You've been through the worst of it now, the end is in sight. Don't listen to the idiots
catastrophising, there's some freaks that get off on spreading alarm.

@LondonFE

98% of people don't have it The average age of a Covid fatality is 82+ The NHS have a winter crisis every year

We've been locked up for a year, deprived of our families and friend and our children have been deprived an education.

The problem is those that are sick are filling our hospitals thus ordinary and life saving procedures are being delayed or stopped Now what would you suggest we do with these sick people

[quote emptydreamer]@CuriousaboutSamphire
My point was that no, the seasonal flu does not have an "unvaccinated" 10% death rate as confidently stated by the poster above. Yes, it is a significant cause of annual deaths, but no, nowhere close to 10% fatality.[/quote]
Yes it is google it. The death rate of flu unvaccinated is ten percent.

The reason it is much lower is because we do vaccinate the vulnerable. In fact everyone over the age of fifty and all vulnerable people. Also many more health adults take the vaccine annually. If we had no vaccination program then flu would be much much more deadly than Covid.

I've found it really helpful when the calm the media scare stories but explaining "in theory, yes x could happen, we've seen no evidence of this but we are looking out for it, it's not happened before but we are prepared if it does etc"

It's like anything isn't it?

I could say I'm safe driving up the M3 at 100mph because I do it everyday and have never crashed.
In theory - I may be right!

But we know the consequences if I did crash would be fatal.

Oh my god ... 😭😭😭

I watched this presser and thought it was hopeful.

@Forgetmenot157

Also to the idiots saying Boris said schools may not go back this year.... That's totally taken out of context....

Stupid journos ask the question and want him to say something they can stab him in the back with later on.... Of course he can't promise they will go back... What if the virus mutated and became 20 times more deadly...

Pathetic journalism and a pathetic response from people!

Not taken out of context at all. Just look at what they're saying needs to happen regarding numbers vaccinated before more children can return to school.

Going to happen in 6 weeks? Nope, Easter is optimistic. Michael Gove also hinted as much earlier today.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

That *@Bluntness100*

Once covid is no longer novel, once we have a number of proven ways to vaccinate against it. THEN we can consign it to 'another flu like thing' and accept the death rate, as we do flu death rate, without fear of drowning the NHS.

Yes, I think people under estimate how deadly flu/influenza and subsequently pneumonia is to the old and vulnerable. If it was running rampant through our country unvaccinated we would have a much bigger problem on our hands. We vaccinate millions annually for a reason.

Many many countries vaccinate against it. For example the USA vaccinated nearly seventy percent of children and forty five percent of adults annually. Even if you look at the Uk, 30 percent of children in London alone between the ages of two and four are vaccinated annually, and that’s before we even start to look at the vulnerable.

Countries who do not either have low resources or do not see it as high priority in their other disease issues.

@Bluntness100 are you Chris Whitty?

He clarified that hopefully there would be none but that it (c19)won’t go away just as fly doesn’t.

Flu

Well it’s not going to go away. It never was. It’s a virus that will mutate and adapt. As should we - then we could get on with life as opposed to all hiding away and risking the economy and out children’s futures.

But for every person who is reasonable and wants to take responsibility for themselves but doesn’t expect everyone else to (like me, post chemo, 44, heavily pregnant now), a whole load more use emotive language to basically imply that unless the world hides so Mrs Smith at 98 is protected (when Mrs Smith should actually be just taken care of in a serious way by her own) you are basically an evil old person killer.

It is bad news that we’ll have another flu type illness out there for the foreseeable. These illnesses kill a lot of people including nearly my son last year.

You don't have to persuade me @Bluntness100! I've read a fair few WHO tomes on various vaccines over the years. I was working working in a public health setting in highly deprived communities around the Wakefield years, that was infuriating, exhuasting and probably used up a lifetime's worth of patience.

@Bluntness100
I don't need to google it, I actually know it because I studied it. I will repeat again - the majority of countries in the world do not have mass flu vaccination programmes, and they don't lose 10% of infected population every season due to flu. There have been no observations of 10% fatality in the times before flu vaccine became available, which is a tiny period of time compared to the history of medicine and even the history actuarial science (if discussing reliable stats).

10% fatality rate is typhoid fever territory, not flu.

The problem here is that there are no perfect or even good solutions - just bad and less bad ones! Ultimately, even if the vaccine is less effective than hoped, the time will come when pre Covid life will resume. There needs to be a critical mass of the public who are prepared to comply with restrictions. That mass/ majority exists now, but public opinion will change the longer it goes on. I suspect that time will be towards the end of this year, if not before. If the vaccine doesn’t work / isn’t the game changer we hope it’s going to be, I think most people will prefer to take their chances, rather than live a restricted life for a third year or whatever. Second, economically we cannot afford lockdowns for protracted periods continuously either - we need the tax revenue for our survival in terms of health spending, defence, education etc. Hopefully we will have learned lessons from the Covid experience which will assist us as a country and individuals at dealing more aggressively and effectively with future pandemics - in terms of early closing of borders, effective track and trace etc.

[quote Drogonssmile]@Bluntness100 are you Chris Whitty? [/quote]
That’s the point though, if people can try to understand how deadly flu/influenza is to the vulnerable and the elderly they will understand why so many countries spend so much valuable resource, money, manpower, production, logistics, to vaccinate against it. The program is a rolling one, they are always developing the next vaccine as the new strains emerge.

But everyone just thinks, oh it’s the flu, it’s nothing, if it was nothing billions of people wouldn’t be getting vaccinated annually for it.

Covid will ultimately be the same. Once they get a handle on the vaccinations and protect the vulnerable and old, the virus will be like the flu virus in the rest of the population, sick for a couple of weeks, then recovery, with only a tiny percentage getting sicker and needing hospitalisation, and subsequently dying. As happens with flu.

If you protect the vulnerable, then we can deal with everyone else, we have the resources.

@Mousehole10

I’ll join you in the saying no. I’m not prepared to live under restrictions after spring.

Saying" no" is what has helped get us here.

I'm struggling tonight with the idea this could go on indefinitely. I've struggled massively with my mental health since this all started but it's even worse now. My main worry is the virus will just keep mutating and basically be one step ahead of the vaccine at every point (though I know fuck all about epidemiology/virology). I could do this for a little longer, until the summer, after that I don't know what we'll do as a family, as a society. Just feel really hopeless, more hopeless than before there was a vaccine!

Home school until summer they should all repeat a year then

@Beebityboo there is nothing to say that we won't have a relatively normal summer and then some less onerous curbs next winter, maybe the same the follwing year, but even less noticeable.

There is a lot of hype, catastrophising based on worst case scenarios and misunderstanding of what has been said by people who kow what they are talkng about.

You personally have a choice. You can beleive the worst case scenario and worry yourself ill over something you can't control or you can believe cautious optimism... so far the virus isn't doing anything unexpected and the vaccines are doing what they were expected to do.. as are people, on the whole. Focus on that...