Rishi Sunak - Moving Goalposts for Lockdown

[LucilleTheVampireBat]

So it is in the news that Rishi Sunak has said he is concerned that government scientific advisers are moving the goalposts in a bid to extend the lockdown.

He is said to have stated that the justification is being shifted from the original and boakworthy "Protect the NHS" narrative, and is now not focusing on hospitalisations, but rather on the number of cases.

This was my concern all along. That they would try to change the narrative in order to justify extending this hideous lockdown even longer.

This quote is from the Telegraph article: "He (Rishi) has told allies that Britain is approaching a "fat lady sings moment" when lockdown must be lifted, never to return". I truly hope that this is the case!

@FatPatty

I’m not sure he’s the best person to listen to. Eat Out To Help Out wasn’t exactly the best idea in the middle of a pandemic. If we open up fast before the vaccines are working properly we’ll be back where we started and also risk new variants. I liked Rishi Sunak at the start of this but I now see he was a disaster capitalist during the 2008 financial crisis. His ideology is aligned for the super rich not the masses.

There is no evidence that eat out to help out caused a surge in numbers,

I liked it. It gave me hope and helped support local pubs. It cheered me up.

I think Covid could never be zero in the UK anyway as we can't close the borders due to our dependence on imports of food and medicine.

You do know that the phrase close the borders doesn't mean that we don't get any products?
It means that people can't come/go freely.
Freight is a different ballgame. It can be automated; freight personnel (drivers) can be physically restricted to go out of an eg: compound; stock can be quarantined; stock can be disinfected,.... so many options. Yes, they will make logistics even harder, but after brexit it wouldn't be such extra effort.

@Shamelessnamechange9 I agree BJ should never have tried to make empty promises to maintain popularity and backing of his strategies, it was only ever marketing, there has always been the science spelling it out very clearly in the background. I don’t like the man nor his cabinet so for me the question isn’t so much why did he say it but why did people believe him? I’d guess that he had a nicer to hear message than Chris Witty...

Vaccinations will impact admissions/deaths but given the rates of admission in 40-65 year olds (NOT deaths) it’s going to take a while unless we reduce infections too.

It’s just not true that hospitals are full of 60-somethings.

Found the data on the NHS website - people under 65 (working age population) = 40% of hospital admissions, so a significant proportion and obviously if you included all under 70's that percentage would be higher.

So they are voting against the public majority then?

I posted the evidence that eat out to help out caused a rise in numbers!

Re MPs? No they are representing their constituents

@MarshaBradyo

The whole way through people have cited polls being pro lockdown, esp if they personally are very keen. Which is often the case on here with a few anyway.

Fortunately MPs vote based on the reality of the damage

YouGov respondents have learned from our government's previous mistakes.

Rather concerningly, Rishi Sunak hasn't.

Since he's the one who brought Heneghan and Gupta into Number 10 to talk the PM. out of a circuit/breaker lockdown he must bear some responsibility for the 50,000 dead British people caused by the second wave.

And now he wants to kickstart a third wave.

[quote bumbleymummy]@herecomesthsun but we’re not trying to stop anyone from ever getting ill and dying from this. There are vulnerable groups every year to all sorts of diseases. We don’t shut down the entire country. We had to do it this year to stop hospitals being overwhelmed. The first 4 groups being vaccinated should reduce deaths by 90%.[/quote]
Imho this is the wrong argument.
It has been proven that there is a high % (10-30) of long covid. Not enough data yet on how much this impacts life chances, employment, quality of life and NHS resources.
By logic I think the goal should be to actually try to prevent as many from getting it in the first place.
If there is a potential of doing long term harm then we should be trying to avoid it.
another imho is that lockdown could have been averted/shortened if:

1. proper mandatory guidances were in place. MAsks all time/everywhere from 5/6yrs up
2. borders closed (Q. hotels for those who need to travel)
3. travel ban in the summer
4. places of mass gatherings should be made safe by rotas (schools), changing shifts or even cutting output (factories)
5. people should have had embraced the "we're in this together" and "let's all do our parts" and "greater good" concepts.

But 1 year on these are still not happening. And yet some/many expect different outcome with same input parameters. Why?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I posted the evidence that eat out to help out caused a rise in numbers!

I loved eat out to help out.

I wouldn’t use YouGov as an indicator Princess

There are many strong factors at play but it won’t have much impact on what happens nor is it very useful

We can be organised to lockdown or go or go out and spend

The numbers are too high annoyingly right now but I look forward to it flipping to new messaging

Re MPs? No they are representing their constituents.

Voted for in pre Covid times. Not in current times. So people may have changed their mind?

I see a fair few ‘polls’ like this. I never see any saying people want less restrictions.

So who is right?

I never see any polls saying people want less restrictions is what l meant .

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Re MPs? No they are representing their constituents.

Voted for in pre Covid times. Not in current times. So people may have changed their mind?

I see a fair few ‘polls’ like this. I never see any saying people want less restrictions.

So who is right?

No I mean MPs represent the pressure they are getting currently from constituents through their own channels. This will have more impact

Sunak only cares about his job, not people's lives. I hope no one pays too much attention to his sulking.

@WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants

Sunak only cares about his job, not people's lives. I hope no one pays too much attention to his sulking.

Are you saying he's a psychopath?

Witches do you work - is your sector unaffected?

A pound to apenny witches is in a cosy public sector job or a SAHP

@Frodont

A pound to apenny witches is in a cosy public sector job or a SAHP

You know that you lose a lot of credibility openly making assumptions about people based on literally nothing.

Anyway, even if she was she has as much stake in the economy and a functioning society as you do. Looking for or making up reasons to undermine her doesn’t make you right or add any weight to your position.

@MarshaBradyo

I wouldn’t use YouGov as an indicator Princess

There are many strong factors at play but it won’t have much impact on what happens nor is it very useful

We can be organised to lockdown or go or go out and spend

The numbers are too high annoyingly right now but I look forward to it flipping to new messaging

Surely you're not suggesting that our government engages in propaganda to change public opinion?!

I think the new variants might put that on hold for a while.

@TheSunIsStillShining

But 1 year on these are still not happening. And yet some/many expect different outcome with same input parameters. Why?

The vaccines are a new input parameter. Also, a lot more people have now had covid and studies are showing 6-8+ months immunity from that so yes, there should be a different outcome when lockdown is lifted. Not as many people should be getting ill, not as many should end up in hospital and the NHS should be able to cope with the numbers that do.

[quote bumbleymummy]@herecomesthsun but we’re not trying to stop anyone from ever getting ill and dying from this. There are vulnerable groups every year to all sorts of diseases. We don’t shut down the entire country. We had to do it this year to stop hospitals being overwhelmed. The first 4 groups being vaccinated should reduce deaths by 90%.[/quote]
This is a misunderstanding of the stats - although you're correct about the first 4 groups being responsible for this proportion of deaths, it is a younger group in hospital (i.e. with treatment 50, 60 yr olds tend to survive but do need treatment to do so). The impact of opening up before 50-70's have been vaccinated is therefore greater than your figures imply. I imagine there's modelling going on to work out how soon we could have vax'd enough to not overwhelm hospitals again, but I'm not confident this govt will be led by that science rather than pandering to popular simplistic opinion...

I think he is completely right and I’m glad he had stated this.
I was worried they’d change the narrative from ‘protect the NHS’ to ‘let’s stop everyone from getting ill’

We’ve got to move on as soon as the NHS isn’t in any imminent danger.

Since there is a strong link between cases and hospitisations you may be clutching at straws

And yes, cases do matter...because low cases mean low numbers of mutations means less likely to through all this again which would be even worse

@CoffeeandCroissant

It’s just not true that hospitals are full of 60-somethings.

Found the data on the NHS website - people under 65 (working age population) = 40% of hospital admissions, so a significant proportion and obviously if you included all under 70's that percentage would be higher.

Yes, so we could reduce hospital admissions by 60% by vaccinating the over 65s... so surely that hugely reduces the burden? Also some of the under 65s will be vaccinated CEVs so that’ll reduce it too.