Should everything be reopened once the death rate drops to flu rates

[notevenat20]

If we keep on vaccinating at this rate then the death rate from covid should drop by 90% by March. At that point it really is as bad as the flu. Should everything be reopened then?

This is Chris Whitty's face on reading your post --->

Just for the avoidance of doubt though, covid is not flu.

The risk of that approach is that widely circulating covid amongst younger population a) affects working population b) higher risk of mutation that fucks the vaccine

If 2020 taught us anything, it is that gung ho = oh fuck

Lol @inquietant 🤣

No, as said above, mutation is not our friend, we need to get the world vaccinated then start to slowly emerge again - but think things i the UK will slowly open when the older population are vaccinated

Yes.
Anything else is just hysteria.
Justification fir lockdown was to prevent the NHS from being overrun, not to prevent ‘cases’

It's not just about the death rate but also about the hospitalization rate.

It's also about the rate of increase of these rates.

Covid is not flu.

An "acceptable" level of death rate may only be achievable by continuing to have some restrictions in place because otherwise things go up exponentially and quickly become unacceptable. On a population level you only get to find out whether something was a terrible idea a couple of weeks later and it takes months of even tougher restrictions to recover if a relaxation happens too soon so it is best to be cautious.

I think people are (understandably) confusing what we’re trying to achieve.

Vaccination isn’t intended to eradicate Covid- it won’t work. I think most scientists have agreed that it is likely here with us forever now, and in future we’ll have “cold, flu and covid” season.

Vaccination is mitigate the worst effects of the illness for all, and to protect the vulnerable. For instance- there are zero plans to vaccinate children, hence a level of perpetual community transmission is expected.

I think as soon as the vulnerable/all over 50s are vaccinated, and all under 50s who wish to be vaccinated, are- in the way that we manage flu vaccination- we should open back up.

Many much younger people have been hospitalised and/or still have long covid symptoms. Hopefully more can open up soon enough, and spring/ summer will help, but until everyone's vaccinated there need to be some restrictions.

If 2020 taught us anything, it is that gung ho = oh fuck

Yes - covid will mutate, just as flu mutates (yet we still have a vaccine!)

Lockdown is apparently to stop the nhs getting overwhelmed, so once rates are down enough instead of sitting in our houses we should be out and about living our lives and pressuring the government to fund the nhs adequately to help prevent such an overwhelm again.

@MRex

Not everyone will be vaccinated. It’s not the plan. No plans to vax children for instance...

You cant fully open up as infection/death rates will then start to rise again. It needs to be a very gradual thing with restrictions lifted slowly as more people get vaccinated among the under 50s. It'll have to be a balancing act. No vaccine is 100% effective, apparently some people will choose not be vaccinated, children wont be vaccinated, so covid is here to stay and WILL spread and cause illness and death. The country can't afford to lift restrictions too quickly and then end up imposing them again (hopefully they have learned from their catastrophic lessening of restrictions last Summer!).

Just to be clear it is true that Covid is not flu. My question was once the number of people severely affected goes down by 90%, do we just accept the risk to the remaining 10% and move life back to normal?

As pp said, we need to be tackling this globally because we are a small country in a big world so all the while other countries don't have this virus under control then we can't relax vecause the virus will continue to mutate.

I was feeling optimistic up until now but now im getting scared and ive had covid already.

I hate to use this phrase but we need to find a 'new normal' and sadly i beieve that this will be accepting that peope are going to continue to die from this. I think that pubs will become a thing of the past and we will find new ways to socialise. Lets face it, most of us were glued to ourphones and kids to screens before this.

@mummyoneboy19

Yes - covid will mutate, just as flu mutates (yet we still have a vaccine!)

Lockdown is apparently to stop the nhs getting overwhelmed, so once rates are down enough instead of sitting in our houses we should be out and about living our lives and pressuring the government to fund the nhs adequately to help prevent such an overwhelm again.

You'll never be able to fund the NHS to cope with 50,000 new daily infections (and that's WITH restrictions). Without restrictions it could easily double, daily deaths could be thousands. We can't spend tens/hundreds of billions extra every year to fund hospitals, icu beds, icu doctors/nurses "just in case". There has to be a balance. More beds, yes, more staff, yes, but the numbers have to be sensible.

Chris whitey has implied that you probably need to vaccinate all the vulnerable plus all the over 45s before the risk to the nhs is sufficiently low,

I agree with him that reducing pressure on the nhs is key to normality. If you don't do that , the millions of nhs workers can't go back to normal , nor can the thousands who need cancer treatment etc

@notevenat20

Just to be clear it is true that Covid is not flu. My question was once the number of people severely affected goes down by 90%, do we just accept the risk to the remaining 10% and move life back to normal?

No, because going "back to normal" will cause the 10% to rise again!

Must admit, having been fairly optimistic about this year I am rapidly losing that optimism . Think there’s a long rocky road ahead.

You're conflating death rate with hospitalisation rate...and it's hospitalisation rate that seems to be the main driver of the restrictions.

And the average age in hospitals is much lower than the average age at death...the difference being that younger people tend to recover after hospital treatment, and those in the older categories either don't get admitted as the hospital cannot offer them anything that care at home (or in a nursing home) couldn't (for example, they're not candidates for intubation as they're too frail) or die in hospital.

So it will be a little longer than the first four groups, which will indeed have a significant reduction in death rates.

Having said that, if the vaccination programme goes as planned I think life should feel much more normal before we get into summer for most people.

@Kazzyhoward

Once the vulnerable and as many non-vulnerable are vaccinated, why on earth should we live on lockdown just in case there’s a spike?

For the majority of people who contract covid, they do not require hospitalisation. It’s a known fact that the majority of those requiring hospitalisation are in the vulnerable category... who will be vaccinated before things open up.

We’d never be able to fund the nhs properly if we live in fear forever, you’re right there. So let’s (when vaccination rates are higher) lift lockdown so we can kick the economy back into life and pressure the government to use more of the tax we pay on the nhs. :)

It’s illogical to lockdown forever, so once vaccination rates have raised to a high enough level, let’s do away with it.

We don't have a lockdown at all, never have done. The third period of English restrictions is less than the first.

Once about 90% of those most likely to die if they have Covid 19 have been vaccinated, my opinion is that restrictions should be eased in stages. Travel abroad especially to countries where vaccinations are happening at a slower pace may be restricted for longer, especially fro m the UK given the level of deaths and how poor our government response has been.

[quote mummyoneboy19]@Kazzyhoward

Once the vulnerable and as many non-vulnerable are vaccinated, why on earth should we live on lockdown just in case there’s a spike?

For the majority of people who contract covid, they do not require hospitalisation. It’s a known fact that the majority of those requiring hospitalisation are in the vulnerable category... who will be vaccinated before things open up.

We’d never be able to fund the nhs properly if we live in fear forever, you’re right there. So let’s (when vaccination rates are higher) lift lockdown so we can kick the economy back into life and pressure the government to use more of the tax we pay on the nhs. :)

It’s illogical to lockdown forever, so once vaccination rates have raised to a high enough level, let’s do away with it.[/quote]
Who said anything about lockdown? I said restrictions, which means somewhere between the "old normal" and our current lockdown. As we saw last Summer, some restrictions were lifted, others weren't. The same will happen throughout the next few months towards Autumn/Winter, with restrictions being lifted gradually as time passes to ensure infections/hospitalisations/deaths stay within manageable levels. It would be crazy to just drop all restrictions in one "big bang".

Not until we have vaccinated everyone over 45 and then very slowly. It’s not just about the number of deaths but the numbers it puts in hospitals. The more pressure on the nhs the less treatment of other illnesses can be done and no one should want that.

You seem to be entirely ignoring the vaccine in this, what with talk of 50k infections a day and thousands of deaths... not everyone who gets covid is gonna die, y’know. Even in the most vulnerable categories, the odds are you’ll recover.

Some restrictions fine, like huge music festivals etc, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be continuing to avoid my family and friends, playgroups, “non-essential shopping” and the like once a huge proportion of people are vaccinated. It’d be daft to even consider it.

@mummyoneboy19

You seem to be entirely ignoring the vaccine in this, what with talk of 50k infections a day and thousands of deaths... not everyone who gets covid is gonna die, y’know. Even in the most vulnerable categories, the odds are you’ll recover.

Some restrictions fine, like huge music festivals etc, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be continuing to avoid my family and friends, playgroups, “non-essential shopping” and the like once a huge proportion of people are vaccinated. It’d be daft to even consider it.

That's why restrictions were reduced last Summer when infections/deaths were low. And why they've been increased again now infections/deaths are high. It will be the same in 2021. As and when rates fall (due to restrictions and vaccine), restrictions will be gradually reduced. Hopefully, the right balance will be struck and the restrictions won't have to be increased again.

@notevenat20,

If hospitals can comfortably cope, then yes, absolutely.

If not, we need enough restrictions in place to make sure they can.

But when do we finally say enough is enough and do away with all restrictions? We can’t live “restricted” forever.