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!

@ArianaVenti The 60s to over 80s currently make up over 76% of covid inpatients in our local hospitals. The younger hospitalised patients are likely to have comorbidities. The CEV are also in group 4 with the over 70s so that should also help to reduce hospitalisations in younger age groups.

@herecomesthsun

The sole purpose of lockdown is to prevent hospitals becoming overwhelmed. Nothing else- we are not trying to stop everyone getting ill.

Long COVID may well be unpleasant for individuals (though it won't kill them).

But if something potentially being harmful means it has to be prevented at absolutely all costs- when are cars being banned (road accidents, air pollution), chocolate ripped from supermarket shelves(diabetes, heart disease), cigarettes and alcohol banned (cancer, heart disease alcoholism) and all open water fenced off (drowning)?

In fact why don't we all just stay at home at all times eating lettuce to ensure everyone is 'safe'?

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

What,like witches assuming Rishi Sunak actively wants people to die?

@bumbleymummy the quote above saying ~40% admissions are 18-64yrs seems correct (e.g. www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-55586994)
So given that critical care is currently running at >2x normal capacity (at least in my hospital, i imagine it's similar everywhere) - just for covid not including everything else. Therefore keeping covid rates to be similar to those currently for under 64s risk us requiring critical beds for covid to be similar to numbers we normally need for all critical care. But we have a backlog of surgery that needs dealing with.

@ArianaVenti - do you know the percentage who are considered CEV and would be vaccinated as part of group 4?

@Frodont oh is RS on this thread then?

Don’t pretend there’s not a difference in talking about a public figure to making personal assumptions about someone engaged in a direct discussion with you.

most people in hospital will be in groups 1-6

group 5 is already being done here so I imagine we will be fully open once it gets to april

Group 5 is huge though. It’s the biggest group of all.

@bumbleymummy no sorry i don't.
@pastanred the problem is - and I'm not sure it comes across in the media v well - is that hospitals aren't currently really coping. They're kind of appearing to by firefighting huge patient numbers who need treatment for covid, but it's at the expense of other things. Unless covid numbers in hospital drop to very low levels, trying to clear the backlog of delayed treatments still won't be possible. So even if as you say most patients are from groups that will be vaccinated, the rest may well still be large enough numbers to pose a problem. This is why the scientific/medical advisors are saying to be cautious in opening up v slowly

group 5 has 3.3 million, only slight more than 3.2 million in group 4

theyre currently vaccinating over 2 million a week

If course he is. He is a young, healthy, millionaire former baker. His remit is the economy. The longer this goes on, he deeper the hole he has to fill. His Eat Out scheme didn’t exactly cover him in glory. 17% increase in infection rate according to ONS.
I’d prefer scientific evidence, if it’s all the same to him.

Banker

But most of the young in hospital also have underlying conditions - so will be done at group 6

the numbers of people in hospital completely healthy must be very low. I know staff who work at my closest 3 hospitals and all say those who are ill are old or young with chronic issues

Hospital admissions after vaccination will be much lower than summer i imagine and so most will open

They wont worry about people getting it and getting ill as long as the people who die and end up in hospital are protected

they're not attempting to stop it completely

@Itisasecret

If anything, the pandemic has shown how the general population are a bit slow when it comes to science. It should be a compulsory pass like maths and English.

As CW has explained, multiple times, even talking slowly. The vaccine is great, it will stop old people dying. The problem is, it won’t help hospital capacity because the people who need treatment, who take beds, yet will live. They aren’t in the first wave of vaccinations. If you let it rip through as before it could undo the progress with vaccines.

Nature changes the goalposts because that’s what viruses do. It’s not even GCSE biology to be fair.

I agree it's nauseating to me just how few people have even the most basic grasp of quite how carefully considered lifting lockdown needs to be at this stage of the vaccination process. Frustrating though this is we need patience

He blocked a 2nd circuit break in sept.
I don't trust him. Remner financial debacle of tiers system up north.

www.cityam.com/keir-starmer-lashes-out-at-rishi-sunak-over-second-lockdown-delay/

But if something potentially being harmful means it has to be prevented at absolutely all costs- when are cars being banned (road accidents, air pollution), chocolate ripped from supermarket shelves(diabetes, heart disease), cigarettes and alcohol banned (cancer, heart disease alcoholism) and all open water fenced off (drowning)?

I’m astounded that people are still making such ridiculous comparisons 12 months into this.

[quote Cornettoninja]@Frodont oh is RS on this thread then?

Don’t pretend there’s not a difference in talking about a public figure to making personal assumptions about someone engaged in a direct discussion with you.[/quote]
Well? Do you know if shes a SAHP or has a protected public sector job? It's relevant.

[quote FizzyPepsi]@herecomesthsun

The sole purpose of lockdown is to prevent hospitals becoming overwhelmed. Nothing else- we are not trying to stop everyone getting ill.

Long COVID may well be unpleasant for individuals (though it won't kill them).

But if something potentially being harmful means it has to be prevented at absolutely all costs- when are cars being banned (road accidents, air pollution), chocolate ripped from supermarket shelves(diabetes, heart disease), cigarettes and alcohol banned (cancer, heart disease alcoholism) and all open water fenced off (drowning)?

In fact why don't we all just stay at home at all times eating lettuce to ensure everyone is 'safe'?[/quote]
We have to reopen intelligently. That means cautiously and listening to the scientists. Science, you know, just means knowledge. We need to use the information we are learning about this situation to our best advantage.

news.sky.com/story/amp/covid-19-the-impact-vaccinating-everyone-over-70-will-have-and-what-happens-when-over-50s-get-the-jab-too-12207863
This article explains it really well - and to link back to the op, it still sounds like its primarily about reducing hospitalisations as far as chris whitty is concerned, it's just that numbers dying don't correlate brilliantly with numbers hositalised (which tbf isn't obvious unless you look at the actual figures)

[quote FizzyPepsi]@herecomesthsun

The sole purpose of lockdown is to prevent hospitals becoming overwhelmed. Nothing else- we are not trying to stop everyone getting ill.

Long COVID may well be unpleasant for individuals (though it won't kill them).

But if something potentially being harmful means it has to be prevented at absolutely all costs- when are cars being banned (road accidents, air pollution), chocolate ripped from supermarket shelves(diabetes, heart disease), cigarettes and alcohol banned (cancer, heart disease alcoholism) and all open water fenced off (drowning)?

In fact why don't we all just stay at home at all times eating lettuce to ensure everyone is 'safe'?[/quote]
It's more along the lines of eg ovarian/breast cancer gene screening.
Cars/drivers have to follow rules that make it safe(r) and have to adhere to strict emission policies. And the at almost all costs does apply: policing, jail, insurance growing if you cause any accident.
A lot of products have lowered salt/sugar content because of known correlation between those and illnesses/conditions.

I don't think the sole purpose is to "save the NHS". That is a very short sighted view.

long-covid and being unpleasant - I live with a life long condition. Manageable, but a pain in the arse and a pain in general. I'm happy to consider anyone's opinion but only if they have enough empathy -you don't- or have similar experience. Being totally healthy and saying that it's not an issue to have a life altering condition is more than annoying.

So much misinformation here - Chris Whitty does not have a degree in economics, he has a diploma which is an entirely different thing and his remit - as CMO - is not economic advice. He is not trained, regulated or indemnified to give that

Johnny Van T et al are not in charge of running the country. However "nice" and "competent" they may appear, they are not elected and this is was still (just) a democracy the last time I checked. I am no fan of Boris etc but he did run for election and it is up to him to ultimately make the decisions after listening to a broad spread of advice.

What does need to change - and should hopefully do after the inevitable 10 year inquiry - is that Sage need be given a strict remit whereby the advice they give is confidential until the minutes in their entirety are agreed and released directly after meetings. I am fed up of seeing Sage members popping up on 24 hour news channels giving their very specific and limited views (which they have to be as they are only specialists in specific and limited areas) with very little context or nuance. It is also entirely unprofessional and actually detrimental when they publically appear to criticise the Government for not taking their advice. These members are not party to all of the advice that the Government receives so actually have no idea of the reasonableness or not of the Government's decisions - another fact they singularly fail to mention

As I have said, I am no fan of the Government and I think they have made many errors of judgement but the extraordinary amount of airtime given to the SAGE members (and it is always the same usual suspects who do the media rounds - Semple/Michie in particular - looking at you) is substantially skewing the debate on this.

They are there to provide advice

We need more not less input from scientists - if we want the best possible outcome that is.

@MiaMc

But if something potentially being harmful means it has to be prevented at absolutely all costs- when are cars being banned (road accidents, air pollution), chocolate ripped from supermarket shelves(diabetes, heart disease), cigarettes and alcohol banned (cancer, heart disease alcoholism) and all open water fenced off (drowning)?

I’m astounded that people are still making such ridiculous comparisons 12 months into this.

Is the reason you think it’s ridiculous that those things aren’t contagious diseases? Because if it is, that’s not relevant to the point that poster is making.

There are restrictions we can live with to prevent harm to other people, but generally we don’t. The reason we have with covid is because it’s a pandemic which could overwhelm the hospitals and cause hundreds f thousands of deaths - not because some unfortunate people are left with long covid. That is very sad but cannot justify the colossal human suffering caused by lockdown in the way that the hospitals being overwhelmed can.

@herecomesthsun

We need more not less input from scientists - if we want the best possible outcome that is.

On what possible basis do you say that? And what "input" do you mean? Scientists are there to advise. They are not elected to run the country.

I don't think SAGE are in the thrall of the government - quite the opposite. I have a number of issues with Sage as I have said but the primary one is them appearing in the media and berating the government for not following their instructions to the letter. However, when challenged about the downsides of lockdowns they simply throw up their hands and say “nothing to do with me, guv, the government has to balance things.” They shouldn’t be appearing in the media at all – they should be following the same rules as the civil service or other government advisors. If they don’t like the government response they can step down and criticise it for their 15min of fame. However, they appear in the media on the basis of SAGE membership “Prof elbow patches, a member of Sage in one very limited area, says that LD3 should continue until 2022 to save lives.” What other input do you want - them to take over running the country?!

@EnemyOfEducationNo1

Yeah let's open up and let all the extra transmission create more opportunities for mutations meaning no immunity from previous infections and all the hard work developing vaccines goes to waste. Great idea.

I know this is hideous. I'm 2 stone heavier, losing my mind trying to work full-time on zoom whilst also getting 3 primary kids to complete the bare minimum of home learning. But if we allow further mutations we will just have this again and again!

Yep exactly this ☝🏻