Chris Whitty in The Times today - don't meet friends and family unnecessarily

[MrsMiaWallis]

"Emergency patients will be turned away from hospitals, causing “avoidable deaths”, unless the public starts obeying the lockdown, England’s chief medical officer warns today.
In a stark intervention designed to shock, Professor Chris Whitty warns that everyone who meets friends and family unnecessarily is a “link in a chain” that threatens the lives of vulnerable people"

Worth noting. I had to pick up a prescription from my local town and was surprised to see so many people - mainly middle aged women, some of whom I know and had always seemed like rational intelligent people - walking around town and chatting on the pavements, unmasked, no social distancing.

Apologies I don't know how to do share tokens.

We need a fear campaign
As far as I'm concerned, that hand has been overplayed for years: with impending "disasters" such as the Millennium bug, your mobile phone is killing you, and Tony Blair's weapons of mass destruction. It's why I dismiss many, many things as "media hysteria".

@wanderings

We need a fear campaign As far as I'm concerned, that hand has been overplayed for years: with impending "disasters" such as the Millennium bug, your mobile phone is killing you, and Tony Blair's weapons of mass destruction. It's why I dismiss many, many things as "media hysteria".

True and we’ve had nothing but a fear campaign from the word go

@glassacorn

Yesterday I walked to drop off some essential shopping to someone isolating and couldn't believe how many people were out (usually quiet small town)... no distancing or masks but clearly from different households and so many didn't even move on pavements or paths so I had to step in to road or verge to make enough space. The only mask I was on one very elderly lady pulling a shopping trolley. Didn't feel safe. 😔

Maybe they were doing essential shopping also We really shouldn’t judge others when we are doing the same ourselves. Wouldn’t you agree

Perhaps if whitty wanted the general public to listen to him he shouldn't have been part of Project Fear scaremongering in November. As pp said, people are sick of the boy who cried wolf. Also this is the same whitty who told us at the beginning of the pandemic that masks were ineffective and we didnt need to wear them.

Due to the above I unfortunately I no longer trust whitty

I Work for a Major Supermarket, its shocking how many people meet up and treat it like a day out, Mum and Dad and 3 kids in tow, meeting with other family.Not wearing masks properly and treating this whole situation like its a joke. Often the same people coming in daily for something to do. When are People going to take this seriously

Yes the message re leaving home for essentials seems to have bypassed many. Fancying wine or chocolate doesn’t class as an essential journey nor is it worth adding to supermarket numbers for.

Bit like the exercise rule re meeting one person has been used by many to socialise with others etc rather than actually exercise.

Project Fear scaremongering in November

With a 100,000 dead, it's not scare-mongering. Unless you think it's OK that so many people have died of this disease?

No I dont think its ok that so many people have died of this.disease.

Nor do I think it was okay for Whitty and co to come up with figures that were completely false in november in order to terrify the public. 4k deaths per day by the end of December when they knew full well that would not happen even in a worst case scenario.

I just dont get how so many people can trust someone who outright lied in order to scare us all

I don't think people were that terrified were they?

They certainly weren't adhering to lockdown rules in many cases

Some of my colleagues did indeed use the word "terrified" to describe how they were feeling. No matter if not everyone was terrified, it's a pretty shitty thing to do regardless

After the inventor of one of the previous vaxes said, he used to hold his breath until the 30 millionth person had been injected , I don’t think it’ll be any time soon for me

I know there are two basic types in use, from several manufacturers, but globally over 40million vaccinations have been given (source: outworldindata.org) so I think we are at or very close to the end of the breath holding in terms of safety.

And then it becomes a waiting game - waiting for the numbers to fall, using the relative 'safety' of the summer months to see everything come back under control, see if levels fall even further than they did last summer, see if they stay down at the start of the next winter virus season

The bated breath now is, I think, about whether and when any further new variants emerge, and how different they are

take a look around some of the covid wards, bringing body bags in, exhaused staff, believe me it is very real

@scaevola The issue for many is not the immediate impact or lack of it, it is what might or might not happen in 9 or 12 or 15 months time.

@BonnieDundee

No I dont think its ok that so many people have died of this.disease.

Nor do I think it was okay for Whitty and co to come up with figures that were completely false in november in order to terrify the public. 4k deaths per day by the end of December when they knew full well that would not happen even in a worst case scenario.

I just dont get how so many people can trust someone who outright lied in order to scare us all

I agree with you

I think that the 4000 deaths a day slides were not the choice of Whitty and co, Chris Whitty has said that.

They also represented the worst case scenario - what might have happened perhaps without the lockdowns we have had.

We can 't be sure in all this what would have befell if different plans had been made, of course.

No herecomesthesun that scenario was never going to happen and they knew it. As for Whitty, hes not an 18 year old on a zero hours contract who has to go along with his boss. Hes an intelligent educated person very high up in his field who should have insisted on not using false data. He has damaged public trust

We're at almost 2k deaths per day with loads of restrictions. Surely, without restrictions it would be at least 4k (especially if you add in the deaths from hospitals being overwhelmed and having no space for new patients).

It seems like a reasonable worst case scenario to me.

@BonnieDundee
Actually if the natural R rate for the new variant is 4 and with measures in place we have been keeping it below 2 (but closer to 1) - then the obvious inference is that infection rates could be double or triple what we are seeing - and by extension, hugely increased death rates. But death rates are only part of the whole picture, resourcing the NHS to treat those who are seriously unwell is a much bigger problem.

It wasnt a reasonable worst case scenario. They were officially criticised for using those figures at the time. They used false figures to instill fear

my daily fresh air and exercise involves calling at my local post office / grocers, 2 minutes walk away, always wear mask of course, the assistant in the shop said a man had just been in , not wearing a mask, saying " I`m not wearing one of them , not needed, , I said i hoped they kicked him out, what planet is he on ????

@BonnieDundee

It wasnt a reasonable worst case scenario. They were officially criticised for using those figures at the time. They used false figures to instill fear

It was the worst case scenario if there were no mitigations. However, there always would have been mitigations, because we are not thugs willing to watch people dying in heaps outside of hospitals. It is only in that sense that these figures were so unlikely to come to be.

Not sure who was criticising them, especially as it was not the scientists' choice to have the figures on the slides but the politicians', apparently.

The scientists certainly did not "use false figures to instil fear".

I disagree. There were never going to be that number.of.deaths at.that time even without mitigation. I also disagree and firmly believe that the scientists DID use flawed information to frighten the population

Still it seems to have worked. Most people still trust them despite the evidence they were lying

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8917845/Weekly-Covid-19-infection-rates-dropped-82-countrys-149-local-authorities.html

@IloveJKRowling

We're at almost 2k deaths per day with loads of restrictions. Surely, without restrictions it would be at least 4k (especially if you add in the deaths from hospitals being overwhelmed and having no space for new patients).

It seems like a reasonable worst case scenario to me.

I agree.

I'm in the South East. We had the worst covid rates in December. The majority of schools were closed by the 10th due to too many year groups isolating. Shops were unbelievably empty, and it was pretty rare to see anyone not wearing a mask. Covid numbers still doubled every week. I don't know anyone who hadn't cancelled family mixing at Christmas before the government announcement.

Amongst family, friends, and co-workers we hardly knew anyone who had covid before December. Since then, everyone knows people who have had it. Some mildly, some incredibly ill, a few hospitalised, and a few have died.