So if we're going to live with covid

[Lelophants]

And counties like Australia and NZ have a no covid policy, how on earth will we integrate? I know the UK is too far gone. But how will we be allowed to travel if we keep getting vaccinnes but they don't always stop transmission because we have constantly new strains?

Or do you think other countries will give up on no covid policies too?

What's so hard in saying the phrase "this virus has important differences from the flu so we need different measures"?

Okay think of it this way.

We have two kinds of flu that trouble us. We have pandemic flu, which is the really bad kind usually. Pandemic flu goes through the population fast because people don’t have (any/much) immunity. It usually kills a lot of people doing this. It grows exponentially in the population. It is a respiratory virus so it is quite hard to control, because breathing the same air as someone infected is all it takes to catch it.

Flu does not stay pandemic for ever. At some point, there is enough population immunity through vaccination or infection that it can’t cause that kind of damage any more. So it still circulates, but at much lower and less damaging levels. It turns into seasonal flu, that comes round every year. You may well have a had a descendant of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic - you probably weren’t very ill with it.

Right now covid is more like pandemic flu. In a world where we have mass vaccination, plus a lot of immunity through infection, it’ll turn into something more like seasonal flu. Still around, still nasty, still kills some people every year, but nothing like the danger that it used to be.

Or it might be even better - it might turn into one of the other four common human coronaviruses, and bother us even less. But those probably caused pandemics when they first crossed to humans too.

@twelly

We don’t test and track flu.

No, but we would do if it was as much of a concern/risk as covid

@PracticingPerson

Can someone outline what it will be like then as an alternative?

It will be like covid... but whenever that is said people freak out because a) they want something familiar and b) they want something easier.

No do. Don’t cop out.

Even Neil Ferguson who is never an optimist said this is likely to be our last lockdown.

So you disagree? It will ge the same as now but people vaccinated or...

I absolutely agree this can be our last lockdown.

So long as we don't listen to the likes of Steve bloody Baker!

We do test and monitor for flu, just not in the kind of way we currently do for covid.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-national-flu-reports-2019-to-2020-season

I do hope that alongside getting the numbers down we will start (feels like we could have seen this coming..) to improve our test, track and trace policy. We're going to need to update the vaccine, we're going to need what to and out of everything we've done badly in the UK during all of this, we have a good track record of sequence from test data so we actually know what we've got circulating. We need to make sure it's financially viable for people to isolate once they've been identified as carrying it (yes soon everyone will be vaccinated but a new variant may not be effect so why knowingly leave a carrier circulating it further?)

I fear the government wants to be done with all this this year or next and won't want to commit to actually developing a future platform which will allow us to fight the next (non covid) pandemic which comes our way....

Steve Baker is a loan voice of reason. Would there were more of him

@twelly

We don’t test and track flu.

@twelly not in the same way but flu strains are very closely monitored

And Covid is very very different to flu

@Nellodee

I think that's the first time I've been called an optimist on Mumsnet (though I think I am one, too).

@Nellodee

You sound like you are! Realistic and cautiously optimistic

@GoldenOmber

What's so hard in saying the phrase "this virus has important differences from the flu so we need different measures"?

Okay think of it this way.

We have two kinds of flu that trouble us. We have pandemic flu, which is the really bad kind usually. Pandemic flu goes through the population fast because people don’t have (any/much) immunity. It usually kills a lot of people doing this. It grows exponentially in the population. It is a respiratory virus so it is quite hard to control, because breathing the same air as someone infected is all it takes to catch it.

Flu does not stay pandemic for ever. At some point, there is enough population immunity through vaccination or infection that it can’t cause that kind of damage any more. So it still circulates, but at much lower and less damaging levels. It turns into seasonal flu, that comes round every year. You may well have a had a descendant of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic - you probably weren’t very ill with it.

Right now covid is more like pandemic flu. In a world where we have mass vaccination, plus a lot of immunity through infection, it’ll turn into something more like seasonal flu. Still around, still nasty, still kills some people every year, but nothing like the danger that it used to be.

Or it might be even better - it might turn into one of the other four common human coronaviruses, and bother us even less. But those probably caused pandemics when they first crossed to humans too.

@GoldenOmber that's so interesting

See I think your comparisons though are wrong in one simple way that I can immediately see. The countries that did well in the Spanish flu were those which quickly took quarantine measures. There was a huge huge variation in how countries did with the Spanish flu and even then the importance of strict quarantine amd border closures was well known

If there was no variation in how countries have some in previous flu pandemics your point would stand. But there are. I recently read a detailed history of Spanish flu where all this is outlined

Even Neil Ferguson who is never an optimist said this is likely to be our last lockdown.

@MarshaBradyo I would bloody well hope so! At least long lockdown. If we do things right!!

My worry is they will reopen too quickly without proper measures and will introduce idiotic measures like eat out to help out and we will squander our efforts

@Xenia

Steve Baker is a loan voice of reason. Would there were more of him

That's a fairly niche view of Steve Baker

@Xenia

Steve Baker is a loan voice of reason. Would there were more of him

@Xenia In what way? Do tell.

The countries that did well in the Spanish flu were those which quickly took quarantine measures. There was a huge huge variation in how countries did with the Spanish flu and even then the importance of strict quarantine amd border closures was well known

But how is that a difference to what I’m outlining? That same flu strain still circulated in those countries for decades afterwards. And none of them kept border controls in place long term.

I’m not saying (nobody is saying!) that it wasn’t appropriate to go in hard against covid at the start. But when we’re talking about some kind of vision for what the world will look like in 5, 10, 15 years time, it does help to have things to compare it with.

But how is that a difference to what I’m outlining? That same flu strain still circulated in those countries for decades afterwards. And none of them kept border controls in place long term.

@GoldenOmber of course they didn't once it became less deadly!

What you outline is a "let it rip through" strategy of giving up while even with flu pandemics that has never been shown to be the best strategy

It’s the zero covid merry-go-round.m!

“We can’t eradicate it.”

“Zero Covid isn’t about eradicating it! It’s about eliminating it within national borders using border closures and quarantine.”

“We can’t keep border closures and quarantine in place forever though.”

“Zero Covid isn’t about doing this forever! It’s only until we have enough control and immunity through vaccines.”

“Okay, then once everyone’s vaccinated, we go back to living with some level of covid, since we can’t eradicate it and we can’t keep it out forever? But that’s okay since we’ll have a vaccinated population?”

“How awful to say that. I can’t believe the government wants us to ‘live with it’, we should go for Zero Covid.”

@MaxNormal

That’s over 15million” vaccinated” which is great HOWEVER it’s actually a less encouraging 15 million had one dose of a schedule that wasn’t really what the manufacturers have evidence for , but we guess will be ok.

There are significant numbers getting Covid 21 days plus after 1st shot still. We await the figures and especially hospitalisation rates I guess.

What you outline is a "let it rip through" strategy of giving up while even with flu pandemics that has never been shown to be the best strategy

No! I haven’t! Not once! Fucking hell, there is a middle ground between ‘zero covid’ and ‘let millions die’.

What I said was: “ Flu does not stay pandemic for ever. At some point, there is enough population immunity through vaccination or infection that it can’t cause that kind of damage any more.”

How you have translated that into me calling for a ‘let Covid rip through without trying to mitigate it’ policy is beyond me.

I give up. It would be nice to have a proper reasonable conversation about what the long-term strategy might be and what the future might look like but clearly there is no way to have that.

‘Giving up’. Christ.

It will probably be like flu. There are a fair amount of flu deaths every winter, but on balance it isn't feasible or reasonable to close down society to mitigate the risk of it. The issue will be there will now be flu and covid, but to be honest I do think it will even out eventually. The flu jab is altered every year as they use science and clever stuff I don't understand to best predict which strain is going to be the prominent one.

It will take time, but other countries will open up as well, just have to see what happens. Globally it was never going to be possible to eliminate covid completely due to the delays at the start- it was already about the end of 2019.

@GoldenOmber

What you outline is a "let it rip through" strategy of giving up while even with flu pandemics that has never been shown to be the best strategy

No! I haven’t! Not once! Fucking hell, there is a middle ground between ‘zero covid’ and ‘let millions die’.

What I said was: “ Flu does not stay pandemic for ever. At some point, there is enough population immunity through vaccination or infection that it can’t cause that kind of damage any more.”

How you have translated that into me calling for a ‘let Covid rip through without trying to mitigate it’ policy is beyond me.

I'm glad if you don't and I'm sorry if I misunderstood. It's easy to happen on these threads. I still stand by the idea that keeping cases as low as possible should be the priority

What we're realistically going to end up with is a seasonal virus that almost disappears in summer and, some years, threatens to overwhelm us in winter.

A constant track and trace system is different to monitoring - track and trace them isolation is totally different. I do not believe that sort of approach will lead to a society which needs to rebuild community. We have created a work where people are encouraged to report on neighbours, friends and family. Do we really want a society like this

and, some years, threatens to overwhelm us in winter.

You’d have to hope that quite soon we’ll have good treatments for it though.

Hopefully, yes. In fact, some of the treatments that are being developed for Covid look like they may have wider applications for other diseases, which is even more reason to be optimistic.