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!

@MiaMc

The comparison is perfectly reasonable once the risk of hospitals being overwhelmed has been removed.

If you are attempting to justify continued lockdown after there is no risk of hospitals being overwhelmed on the basis of long COVID, there is no reason not to also ban any of the things I've mentioned.

[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]
gets down on knees and hails

I've found it, the holy grail. Amongst the doom monger, coronaphobics and lockdown lovers, there is someone who speaks common sense and logic.

Fizzy Pepsi for PM.

So they open us up again. What will it look like?
Schools- ok.
Pubs- but can you sit with more than a couple of people? If not: pointless for me.
Gyms: 10 per class, fighting over a spot. I'll have to make do.
Hairdressers: yes please.
Shops: not arsed. Online.
Kids' activities: yes please.
Most workplaces round here never closed anyway.

Going to friends' for drinks: bet that stays banned.
Having kids round to play: that'll stay banned.
Going abroad: banned.

[quote ArianaVenti]@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[/quote]
Covid patients are around 20% of patients in our local hospitals at the moment and, as I said, over 70% are over 60. Studies in other countries show that the majority of younger patients have comorbidities too. I really think you’re being a bit doom and gloom about this. Particularly when we’re coming out of the winter months when hospital occupancy is always higher.

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

I hate to break the news, FizzyPepsi, but even won't save you www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/leafy-greens.html

Okay, it's the American CDC, but no doubt similar evils lurk even over here ...

Unless covid numbers in hospital drop to very low levels, trying to clear the backlog of delayed treatments still won't be possible

Ah yes, I'd been wondering when "the backlog" would be co-opted as yet another factor in continuing restrictions, and here it is ...

The trouble is with comorbidities, is that a lot of people don't know they have them. What if you're just edging into diabetes but don't know? Have a heart condition? Where i live, men between 40 and 65 seem to have been hit hard. Fb has had a run of shocked relatives posting pictures of men with often young children, who seemed perfectly ok , then got cv. I was genuinely scared when dh and I caught it because he's in that age bracket. Yes, older people are dying in larger numbers, but it's just so random.

Ugh the whole mutations thing. Viruses mutate all the time. It could just as easily become milder as more severe. The only reason we even know about the different mutations now is because we are one of top countries for genomic sequencing. I’m not entirely sure it’s a good thing to be honest - certainly telling the general public about the different variants isn’t anyway.

@Gobbolinothewitchscat on the basis that scientists have a better understanding of the consequences of the different choices that need to be made.

The vaccines are our best hope of salvaging this situation; they are the product of medical science.

As opposed to "let' s pretend this isn' t happening and all get together for however long at Xmas " - Johnson

Or let's spend millions on getting everyone together in indoor spaces in the middle of a pandemic - Sunak

I'd rather listen to Whitty and Van Tam thanks.

The idea that we needn't worry about the spread of Covid once people in the first nine priorities have been vaccinated is dangerous. Every infected person is an opportunity for the virus to mutate. In less than a year we've seen significant mutations arise independently in several parts of the world that make the virus more infectious. Jury seems to be out on whether the current new mutations make the virus more likely to kill, but there's no reason why that couldn't happen. Provided the virus has a chance to transmit in the pre-symptomatic incubation phase, whether it kills people after that is a neutral factor in terms of which mutations benefit the virus's ability to spread. We need to get infection rates right down before we have widespread opening up. We currently have the vaccines to help with that. Let's not encourage the government to squander that precious opportunity by opening up too early and giving the virus lots more opportunities to mutate into a version that defeats the vaccine.

As for "changing the goalposts", being ready to change tack in the light of new information coming to light is a sign of intelligence. No one should be criticised for that!

@bumbleymummy did you look at the link? 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
I'm not being doom and gloom I'm just posting facts - i realise that means things might take a bit longer than we'd like to be able to open up (tbh i suspect only weeks given the rate at which we're vaccinating), but I'm trying to explain why that is. It's to enable hospitals to provide sufficient critical care capacity. (Yes it may be that covid accounts for 20% of inpatients in total, but that doesn't mean critical care isn't running at double normal capacity as it's only a proportion of inpatients.

The point I'm trying to make is that rushing to open up before more than just group4 is immunized can still cause hospital capacity to be a significant problem, particularly given our huge backlog. Believe me I'd love to be able to open up as rapidly as possible, I'm just aware that with the current vax rates an extra couple of weeks could make a big difference to the care hospitals are able to offer.

[quote herecomesthsun]@Gobbolinothewitchscat on the basis that scientists have a better understanding of the consequences of the different choices that need to be made.

The vaccines are our best hope of salvaging this situation; they are the product of medical science.

As opposed to "let' s pretend this isn' t happening and all get together for however long at Xmas " - Johnson

Or let's spend millions on getting everyone together in indoor spaces in the middle of a pandemic - Sunak

I'd rather listen to Whitty and Van Tam thanks.[/quote]
You can listen to as many scientists as you want. The point is that we live in a democracy and the elected representatives are the decision makers. You don’t need to listen to the Prime Minister - but you’re lack of attention doesn’t preclude him from making the decisions that will affect you

@ReviewingTheSituation l keep thinking that too - how do people think EOTHO caused the November lockdown? Was weeks after!
Love your username - big Oliver fan!

I read the article and I’ve also read the JCVI decision and studies showing the fatalities etc in the different priority groups. Yes, icu figures are still high and need to come down further before things get easier but they are going to be one of the last things to drop - along with deaths. Our ICU admissions are just starting to fall now even though cases have been falling for weeks and hospitslisations started to drop last week.

Well? Do you know if shes a SAHP or has a protected public sector job? It's relevant

@Frodont No I don’t and as I said before, no it isn’t relevant. She can be either of those things and entitled to her opinion because she’s just as much a part of the same society as you are. Why do you think it’s acceptable to make an having an opinion on covid subject to socioeconomic status?

You’re the one making it an either/or choice; Economy or health. The two are entwined and there’s no getting away from that.

@Gobbolinothewitchscat oh I do listen to the Prime Minister that we unfortunately have ended up with and of course his many mistakes have affected us all.

Notice however that when things have gone well, it has been because the science worked, and when things have gone badly, it has often been because the politicians did not listen to mainstream scientific opinion.

There is a pattern there.

Why do you think it’s acceptable to make an having an opinion on covid subject to socioeconomic status?

Because someone who isn't reliant on the private sector for their money is less likely to appreciate the economic harm caused by endless lockdown.

She also said Sunak wanted people to die, so she's not worth either of our time tbh.

However, without a handle on the health situation we aren't going to get an economic recovery are we?

The vaccines are going to give us the opportunity to get out of this situation at something of an advantage compared with other countries and we need to manage that very carefully.

how do people think EOTHO caused the November lockdown? Was weeks after!
If you take a look at a graph showing how Covid infection spreads, that will give you a clue. Certainly in my area there was a sharp rise in infection rates at the very start of September. Interestingly, the schools where I live went back on 7 September, and the noticeable increase in infection rates started a few days before then. Obviously, we'll never know how many infections were contracted in busy restaurants full of EOTHO customers, but I think the whole ethos of the scheme was unhelpful in terms of encouraging people to think that they were "helping" by lingering in crowded indoor environments. That conveyed the message that people no longer needed to take care and make an effort to social distance.

how do people think EOTHO caused the November lockdown? Was weeks after!

I don't know if it did or not (not looked into it in detail) but @LilyPond2 is correct about how Covid infection spreads. If you look at the genomics for the 'Kent' variant, it was traced back to September, but it only really began to take off in early December and then rose rapidly. It takes a while for a smaller number to double and double again until it becomes a much bigger (and still rapidly growing) number.

That's why releasing too many restrictions too soon when case numbers are still high is risky as they can rapidly change from falling to rising and if they do that when numbers are already high it doesn't take long to see rapid growth.

@ArianaVenti
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

Yes, that article does a good job of explaining it. Also gives the figure I was looking for earlier, 54% of all hospital admissions are over 70 years of age, so nearly half the people admitted are 70 or under. Yes it will vary by area, but overall nationwide, those are the numbers.

This is a couple of weeks old, but you can see who has been admitted to intensive care for covid.

It surprised me.

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

No it isn’t.

1 - Residents in a care home for older adults and their carers (800,000 people)
2 - Those aged 80 and over
and frontline health and social care workers (a total of 7.1 million people in this group: 3.3m over 80s, 2.4m healthcare workers, 1.4m social care workers)
3 - Those aged 75 and over (2.3 million)
4 - Those aged 70 and over
and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals (3.2 million)
5 - Those aged 65 and over (2.9 million)
6 - All individuals aged 16 to 64 with underlying health
conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and
mortality (7.3 million)
7 - Those aged 60 and over (1.8 million)
8 - Those aged 55 years and over (2.4 million)
9 - Those aged 50 years of age and over (2.8 million)

Protect the nhs was a manipulative narrative from the start. Slowing the spread equalled killing people slowly. Mutations prove what was obvious from the start - we need a zero covid approach. We mustn’t throw this lockdown away if we want to avoid another one.

I don't want a zero covid approach.