At what point...

[Whatever9999]

Will the mass testing stop? And the minute detail of every case, hospitalisation and death being reported?

We don't have this for any other illness and once vaccinations have been rolled out the government are going to actually want us to get back to normal. But for a large percentage of people there will be no normality while the media is shouting about numbers.

I read so much on here about how testing criteria should be widened, or how every school child should be tested. We don't do this with, say, the flu (yeah I know its not the flu). We might have heard rumblings in the media during a particularly bad year, but certainly not the frenzy there is now.

I'm sorry but I just can't see the mass testing continuing once even the first cohort have been vaccinated and certainly not to the point where (as some suggest) we have a test because we have cold symptoms.

I think it'll end up much as with mrsa, you only really get tested when you go in to hospital. But I'm not sure how such a massive shift is going to be able to happen with the way the media is reporting.

The government don't want you home because they care about your welfare, they just dont want all the hospital beds taken up.

This is what people either forget, don't know or don't want to hear. People don't actually matter to the government or anyone as long as they have enough working and bringing in taxes. It's a hard pill to swallow to realise we are just all worker bees at the end of the day.

Also, I've over heard Dh colleagues being astounded at the deaths - you are right, a lot of people have no concept of how many people die a day of all sorts of things.

One corker was Dh boss who thought that only a few people die a week in the U.K. She was actually serious when she said that.

I don’t understand. What advantage is there in not confirming a diagnosis of Covid?

It sounds like you’re saying we should drive down the official case numbers by just not testing?

@scottish83

We really need individuals to start taking responsibility for driving a reduction in case numbers.

Setting aside people who do interact with others (childcare/workplace/etc) - track and trace is obviously quite important here.

But those of us who work from home and can take advantage of home delivery services - if we feel ill or have a symptom, we need to ask ourselves what is the actual benefit of getting a test unless we needed medical attention - as if we actually had symptoms of covid but a negative test we wouldn't be going out anyway because we wouldn't want to risk passing on whichever other virus we had.

If we can rely on tactics like lockdown and vaccination to reduce the deaths and we all take responsibility for driving down case numbers then we can hopefully get to a point where only testing for severe cases becomes the norm.

My post ate the quote. Was replying to this ^

@LacyEdge

I don’t understand. What advantage is there in not confirming a diagnosis of Covid?

It sounds like you’re saying we should drive down the official case numbers by just not testing?

Well, if your Covid means you have a week of feeling crap at home, it isn't helpful.

The nosocomial figures are vital and are lost in a sea of cases where we have no idea how many people just had that rough week, or even couple of days.

When they want us to go out and spend.

They won’t announce closing the test centres. They’ll just do it quietly. And everyone will be so relieved to go out that they won’t question this stuff.

@AcornAutumn

I get that but it just takes a quick look around this site to make you realise that people think the goverbment should care and that they 100% should be vaccinated before everyone else because they work in retail/takeaways/drive thru's...the list is endless.

People don't scream that they should have a flu jab each year do they? Screw the elderly and the HCP's it should be fit healthy people first? Then refuse to leave the house of they don't get one? Nope, but it is what is happening here with Covid.

But how can we deduce an active infection fatality rate without widespread testing? It just sounds like recommending putting fingers in ears and going “lalala, no Covid here”.

[quote TooTweeForMe]@AcornAutumn

I get that but it just takes a quick look around this site to make you realise that people think the goverbment should care and that they 100% should be vaccinated before everyone else because they work in retail/takeaways/drive thru's...the list is endless.

People don't scream that they should have a flu jab each year do they? Screw the elderly and the HCP's it should be fit healthy people first? Then refuse to leave the house of they don't get one? Nope, but it is what is happening here with Covid.[/quote]
I agree

What I'm saying is the government don't care if people go back to those jobs and there will be fewer of them to go back to anyway.

So those people can scream, they contribute to lockdown mania, but they won't get what they want.

@LacyEdge

I don’t understand. What advantage is there in not confirming a diagnosis of Covid?

It sounds like you’re saying we should drive down the official case numbers by just not testing?

Once the more vulnerable have been vaccinated, what is the point of testing everyone? It really does feel like some people think mass testing will continue forever. Do you really think we should be testing every cough and cold, for forever more?

I'm just asking at what point this testing and isolating will stop, because it will. I'm mean I wouldn't go round to see someone vulnerable if I had a cold, but until March I wpuldnt have expected to be tested to make sure its just a cold or had to stay isolated indoors by law.

@LacyEdge

But how can we deduce an active infection fatality rate without widespread testing? It just sounds like recommending putting fingers in ears and going “lalala, no Covid here”.

Not at all

We establish IFR for things like flu and pneumonia without mass testing.

My guess is that enough people will want go get back to normal as soon as they possibly can, judging by the success of Eat Out...over the summer etc.. Once the vulnerable are vaccinated the majority won't care about case numbers. Gradually the media will stop reporting on it and most people won't bother going to check them.