We cannot cancel life, to preserve every life

[Slytherin]

I actually find myself agreeing with a Tory for once...we’ve given up so much and the goalposts keep moving, yes it’s an unpredictable situation, but it’s also unsustainable long term. The idea that this summer will be possibly worse than last summer makes zero sense, when we have a vaccine roll out that far exceeds any other nation (except Israel) currently.
First it was let’s get the elderly and vulnerable vaccinated, then it was let’s get the over 50s vaccinated, now we’ve got members of SAGE suggesting restrictions have to continue until everyone, including children are vaccinated and beyond, because of the possibility of new variants. Professor John Edmunds said some would have to stay “forever” last night on Peston.

We must at some point live with an element of risk. I’m in no way suggesting we lift lockdown yet, but suggesting that things won’t have much improved by the summer, is, in my opinion encroaching into dangerous territory.

The government were over promising before, now they’re under promising. There’s got to be a middle ground, people’s mental health cannot sustain this level of pessimism and not having a single thing to look forward to. Everything gets dangled like a carrot, then taken away at the last minute. It’s beyond cruel.

Then it’s the mixed messages, Matt Hancock telling us he’s going on a summer holiday to Cornwall and he’s all booked up and Grant Shapps then telling nobody to even consider booking a holiday abroad or domestically this summer.

Yes, I support restrictions to save lives and support the NHS, but I don’t support the way the government are handling this once again. And I don’t support these restrictions indefinitely, especially when the majority of the at risk groups have been vaccinated.

www.channel4.com/news/we-cannot-cancel-life-to-preserve-every-life-tory-mp-sir-charles-walker-on-lockdown?fbclid=IwAR2RnQNKwJoQ4FSBxT9oTbwbFOCTWcIU9wD9WdYkTEA2sVlJ1posWZAfmsU

@LucasLeesEyebrows. If we completely lift all constraints and the virus rip through those under 50, don't socially distance, don't wear masks and go to what life was pre March. The viral load in those catching the virus will be high, fit and healthy people will end up dieing and the virus will mutate and become more difficult to control even to those who have been vaccinated. Therefore we need to vaccinate everyone quickly.

@veeeeh

Tough restrictions are there to preserve NHS capacity to cope. It's the same all over the world.

Agree.

Once we hit sub 10k in hospital (probably about 4 weeks time), we go for it. See what happens.

Make a cut off of 25k in hospital and they hit the lockdown button again.

People might take personal responsibility if they can see the target.

@StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind

except many younger people who have survived are now ill with long covid

What's the answer then? Because certainly in younger age groups, the harms being done by repeated lockdowns and this miserable way of living are still far more prevalent and worse than long covid.

If it's the case that covid is causing such widespread death/ongoing health problems in young people, why aren't they a higher priority for vaccines? Surely that would be the right thing to do, to protect people who should have 40, 50, 60 years ahead of them? But we're not doing that (I have doubts if boosters and tweaked vaccines are needed that younger people will ever see a vaccine).

It can't be both ways, the young can't be deemed to be low risk enough to delay vaccinating, but also high risk enough that we all need locking up forevermore.

Agree with this

Completely agree (and was an ‘early adopter’, so to speak, as I’ve always had major doubts about the utility of lockdown). Enough is enough now; we need to gain some perspective and start accepting that life is inherently risky.

I heard a SAGE scientist on LBC earlier saying that we can’t come out of lockdown until ‘no one is at risk of entering ICU with Covid’. Pronouncements like that scare me far more than the virus. It now feels like we’re living under a ‘Tyranny of Safety’.

@EarlGreywithLemon very good scientific reasoning telly, which most will ignore.

Oh do give over about the war. Brexit invoked it, but goodness me we have to invoke something else now to keep us going now!

Might' be time to move on with due respect.

• reply - not telly

@Aixenprovence

"I'd much rather sacrifice more now to get things more under control so that Track & Trace can actually stay on top of cases in future"

That is a very interesting question - we need to know why Track and Trace didn't do that last summer, could it be effective next time, and if so what has to happen to make it so? Quicker test results - but can even that work when there is asymptomatic transmission? On another thread pp said hand it over to local authority public health - what have they done differently that would make it work?

Or are we better off spending the t and t money on increasing NHS capacity - upskilling existing staff with ICU training, recruiting new staff to start the process of increasing capacity? I don't know the answer but would be good to have the debate.

The problem with just increasing NHS capacity is that it’s not just about having enough ICU beds. Even if we had infinite number of beds, we should try to fill as few of them as possible. A stay in ICU can have serious life long consequences for the patient. We risk a generation with very poor long term health if we think in these terms.

@LastTrainEast that’s not what I meant at all. My point was that it’s not so far fetched to imagine s the govt taking advantage of this situation in a multitude of ways.

I remember last year there was talk of the army being in the streets and road blocks (none of which appeared) but I did to DH I wonder when people will start to push back/riot .... unrest. And so far that’s not happened so the govt push a bit more?

I don’t know- obviously.... I was just musing.

@frumpety

But should a life saving cancer operation for a 40 year old be cancelled so that a 90 year old can use the ICU bed?

Swop 90 for 60 and you would be more truthful. Do you have the numbers for 90 yr olds currently in ICU beds ? It isn't just about ICU beds, whole wards are having to be designated Covid wards ( where you will find the 90 yr olds ), that has a massive impact on any hospital, the bed numbers are squeeky bum tight at the best of times.

Exactly this. No 90years old is getting an ITU bed sadly, they are dying in their nursing homes and on wards, with the best nursing care possible. Away from their families. The 60yr olds are in ITU. The 40year old cancer patient can’t have their surgery as they don’t have the bed space to operate and take to ITU afterwards and the last thing you want is a cancer patient getting covid. How do you fix this?

Especially when staff are still wearing fucking surgical masks.

Different hospitals different policies. Germany has everyone wearing FP2 in public, here we expect nurses to nurse on covid ward with a fuck surgical mask. They’re not allowed an FP3. Thanks NHS higher ups who are working from home.

Couldn't agree more.

And no, for some posters here, it's not just about protecting the NHS. It never has been. It's also about saving lives, which has been part of government rhetoric from the beginning. Is it right that we should try to save everyone, at such a massive cost? The unpalatable truth is no.

To help motivate me, I would love someone to give me a link to show that, nationwide, the NHS is still struggling to cope with this and is at a real risk of being overwhelmed. If it's not, why the hell are we still in this fucking nightmare, running scared of a virus that for most of us will recover fine from and with a 1% fatality rate?

@TempsPerdu

Completely agree (and was an ‘early adopter’, so to speak, as I’ve always had major doubts about the utility of lockdown). Enough is enough now; we need to gain some perspective and start accepting that life is inherently risky.

I heard a SAGE scientist on LBC earlier saying that we can’t come out of lockdown until ‘no one is at risk of entering ICU with Covid’. Pronouncements like that scare me far more than the virus. It now feels like we’re living under a ‘Tyranny of Safety’.

It is ! Tyranny of safety

If I hear one more person say ‘stay safe ‘ I will scream

I want live my life in an innately unsafe world !

EarlGreywithLemon The problem is this - the genome of the virus has proven less stable than they thought and hoped at the beginning. If you lift restrictions and allow it to run riot among the unvaccinated under 50s, it will mutate- and one of those mutations could mean it evades the vaccines altogether. So we’d be back to square one. The solution is to vaccinate everyone (which we hope to do with at least one dose by September) - the vaccines should cut down transmission. Coupled with loosening restrictions very prudently and a good test and trace, that would keep numbers very low and significantly improve the odds that we don’t get a nasty mutation

This ^

Oh jesus look who's here spreading 'wisdom'. Does a klaxon go off?? 🤦‍♀️

I agree, I’m sick to death of this now and the thought of restrictions lasting for years is just too much to contemplate. I’m a secondary teacher and I’m desperate to get back in the classroom. I’m fed up of trying to teach all of my lessons on Teams. I’m trying my best, but it just isn’t the same. We need some sort of normal life back.

Wow I didn’t expect so many responses. It’s good to see so many agreeing with my post. I’ve just seen another update from Dr Susan Hopkins interview on sky news and she said:

Speaking on a Sky News special programme, COVID Crisis: Learning The Lessons, Dr Susan Hopkins said it was "difficult to say" if rules this coming summer could be tighter than they were during the same period in 2020

How on earth could it possibly be tighter with a vaccine?!

@Flaxmeadow

EarlGreywithLemon The problem is this - the genome of the virus has proven less stable than they thought and hoped at the beginning. If you lift restrictions and allow it to run riot among the unvaccinated under 50s, it will mutate- and one of those mutations could mean it evades the vaccines altogether. So we’d be back to square one. The solution is to vaccinate everyone (which we hope to do with at least one dose by September) - the vaccines should cut down transmission. Coupled with loosening restrictions very prudently and a good test and trace, that would keep numbers very low and significantly improve the odds that we don’t get a nasty mutation

This ^

This makes sense

Why don’t they share the rationale at press conferences ?

[quote frumpety]**@Hammonds* The thing with SAGE is they will not allow other scientists to know how they are getting their findings*

Do you know how many scientists are involved with SAGE and NERVTAG ? Do you think that some of them might be doing their job and trying to homeschool, haven't seen their friends or loved ones for a while, want to go on holiday and go to the pub and the gym and be allowed to do all the things that everyone else wants to do ? You honestly think they are all doing this for shits and giggles ?[/quote]
Not sure why you posted all that drivel about homeschooling and holidays

But any way - why won’t they release how they are getting their findings?

Professor John Edmunds who is now coming out with ‘the vaccines won’t work against the new strains and we must stay in for ever’ was, back in March 2020 an advocate for herd immunity.

So what’s changed?

Here is a link to an interview PJE where he was quite clear lockdowns wouldn’t help and the only way to get through it was herd immunity twitter.com/ruthariop/status/1359951631765356544?s=21

So again - I’d like to know what the fuck changed?

They aren't going to lift all restrictions at once , they can't they have to monitor after each thing they relax, so will be bit by bit.
If they just went back to total normal then we could end up back with large figures and further lockdowns
I do hope that soon we can have some outdoor mixing and kids gradually back at school, then if goes well progress to indoor meeting but its unrealistic to think you can just open as normal cases are lower but still quite high
Don't get me wrong if we start allowing people to holiday here yet I can still not go to my mums then I will ignore certain rules as they have to be done fairly , would rather see shut borders and us that live here getting more freedoms.
Im fed up , have teenagers 17 year old he should be out , meeting mates , finding a girlfriend etc and 15 year old leaving school gcse im the air, I lost my job and haven't been able to find a new one
But I still understand restrictions need to be lifted slowly and would hope by summer very few are around

@AshMeri

This thread is really disturbing to read. I think they've been very clear recently and I'm no fan of Boris and his crew. The numbers of people in hospital with Covid at the moment are still higher than all the other peaks, the waiting lists for surgery, for cancer treatments, are at their longest in many years and this is because so many are in hospital with Covid. These measures are to get the numbers in hospital with Covid down so that the NHS can function. Not on the basis of some moral or ethical argument. Practicalities. That's the rationale behind the vaccination priority groups too. The effects of this will be felt for years to come by anyone who needs medical treatment and that really frightens me.

There have been a lot of these type of threads recently as everyone is getting fed up. But you are right, the hospital numbers are still very high and we are going to have to wait a while for the restrictions to be eased. In the first wave, there was no prior pressures on hospitals, apart from the normal underfunding. This time around, we have some patients from prior to the second/third wave and a huge backlog in other treatments.

Government are being very bearish on the recovery, rather than their usual bullishness. I think they are terrified of the virus mutating and the vaccine not working, leading to delays until the vaccine is tweaked and distributed. The danger with the virus mutating is that the vaccines won't work and we will be back to square one for another six months. That would be worse than lifting the restrictions at a slower pace. We will have to close our borders too, to stop any new mutations arriving or departing.

I understand everyone is fed up. I'm fed up too. It is very hard on everyone, especially for children.

he reason we are in lockdown still is because there isn’t any space in the hospitals
if it was really all about hospitals why didnt govt focus on bolstering the capacity thereof? (instead of the pretend nightingales ones)

[quote devildeepbluesea]@mrsmercedes it's a new virus. Like thousands of others it can cause post viral symptoms. Like flu does, like glandular fever and many others. Yes it's another risk. Is that sufficient to keep everyone locked up in their homes, not earning, not living? I don't think so.[/quote]
It appears Long CoVid may have 3 subgroups, some recover after a few months (post viral fatigue probably), some their symptoms may be from organ damage and the third group have some similarities with ME. Note for this third group there are similarities and differences with ME, not identical and still early days with the study of this sub group of long CoVid and potential similarities to ME. ME is lifelong for the majority.

In this third group the symptoms, like ME, are not simply post viral fatigue, a reasonably common occurrence and usually self limiting even if it can take a few months up to a year or so recover from. In ME there are extensive often v disabling symptoms as many body systems are affected. The key feature in ME is all symptoms getting worse or manifesting after you have exceeded trivial activity limits that pre illness would cause no problems, individual limits vary depending on severity. Some with longcovid report v similar post exertional symptom exacerbation.

I have had ME for 22 years, bedridden 24/7 last 8 years. I hope this sub group of long CoVid doesn’t turn out to be indistinguishable from ME as ME in its severe forms can be a living hell and life changing even in the moderate and mild to moderate forms.

Whether the risk of such a horrible outcome is sufficient to keep everyone locked up in their homes, not earning, not living, I can’t say.

if it was really all about hospitals why didnt govt focus on bolstering the capacity thereof? (instead of the pretend nightingales ones)

Where are hey going to magic all trained staff up from, there not loads of qualified drs and nurses just sat at home

@flaxmeadow

I suggest you listen to the podcast as this is discussed in detail. He actually says that most virus continually mutate over time so that they become less serious to society. This is how the common cold evolved. By locking down this can’t happen, the virus can’t mutate to the point of it just being a common occurrence so instead you get more virulent strains.