What’s the point of vaccinations when still nothing is deemed ‘safe’?

[katieloves]

Just really struggling with this. We’re doing an amazing job and have so far vaccinated the people most likely to succumb to coronavirus and are cracking on with the people less vulnerable. But still it seems all news is bad and no end in sight. Looks likely that we’ll be lucky if only the youngest get back to school from the 8th and not much chance of secondary schools back until after Easter. It just doesn’t make sense to me at all. Most DC are struggling now - their lives are on hold (I appreciate some dc are thriving with home learning but this is not true for any of the dc I know). Motivation for is on a fine line and who can blame them? But apparently school’s not ‘safe’ even though the most vulnerable are vaccinated. People saying we’ll be back to where we were before lockdown if schools go back in full and hospitals will be overwhelmed. Why??? We’ve vaccinated the most vulnerable. I’m honestly loosing the will.

Agree BagelsandBrie but it's a losing battle on here!

If we come at it another way, what advantages are there to NOT having a vaccine that does not totally work for everyone? A vaccine that keeps people from death/hospitalisation but not having one that allows us all to return to normal?

I know it’s such a lag but ‘safe’ will become less relevant as more are vaccinated.

Enough to lower ICU admissions

Exactly, minipie.

"Mass testing of asymptomatic people is a nonsense."
Completely agree. I'm very worried about where this will go.

I'm pretty sure most people vaccinated have not yet had their second dose

@itallworkedouthorribly

18:13TravellingTilbury

You do realise that some of the words on your bingo list are just words that scientists use? You're labelling something as false because it sounds sciency?!

lol. Science articles do not call people 'selfish' etc.

How much do you get paid for your propaganda?

Flu / chicken pox / etc etc may mutate. Anything could. Covid may mutate to be more or less deadly. No one knows. We can’t put our lives on hold for something that may or may not happen.

It has already mutated to become somewhat more deadly (higher transmission actually works out as more deadly but it seems to have pulled a blinder and done both). If we were all never going out again ever you would have a point but you are being asked to stay in until the virus has been dealt with through a combination of vaccination and lowering community transmission, first through lockdown and then test and trace) to a point where it will not be able to be a huge drain in resources in subsequent years.

We're not responding to something that might happen, primarily. We're trying to keep the ace in our hands (the vaccine) and that is proving rather difficult. So that's something that's already happening. As flu doesn't cause this kind of problem in our society to relatively young and fit people, or have a way of transmitting before people know they're ill, it's not helpful to compare it with flu in any way.

@itallworkedouthorribly

The thing is, even if we get our cases low, there will be other countries where cases run riot and variants happen.

That's why there is a global vaccination programme. Hard to see what you're advocating for at this point as that new point shifts the goal posts and suggests you're looking for reasons to say this isn't worth the effort. Any scientist would tell you this is too serious to take that view.

The global vaccination programme will take years.

What am I advocating for? Keeping the goalposts where they were, which is getting cases down (especially among the most vulnerable) by lockdown and vaccination so that the NHS isn’t overwhelmed and deaths reduce significantly. That’s a sensible and achievable goal. Then we start to reopen.

IF a dangerous vaccine resistant variant emerges then yes more lockdowns may be required. But that’s surely a better strategy than staying locked down forever to prevent such a variant - given the global nature of the world and of covid.

Any other goal, like achieving zero Covid in the UK, or keeping cases so low globally that there is no chance of nastier variants, is IMO not going to be achievable, or at least not without such an enormous cost that it would far outweigh the impact of Covid.

What goal do you think we should be pursuing and how do you think we could achieve it? What are the costs of that approach?

The mass testing they rolled out a while ago and the headline saying that 700 people or so who had tested positive were asymptomatic. That was when the stupidity of relying on these tests was highlighted to me.

700 people forced to isolate and told to believe they were ill, with no way to prove otherwise. Not allowed to work, or go to school, or shop because a test, known to give false results told them they were poorly.
That just makes no sense to me.
So its frustrating to see that they are potentially going to focus on these numbers instead of the ones that actually matter.

@mumlurker

I'm pretty sure most people vaccinated have not yet had their second dose

Ah yes, this will be another excuse for the delayers to use. 'need another does' 'need a booster' 'need a variant dose' ...

This is not a reason to keep locking down. There comes a time when we have to be responsible for our own health but can't keep locking down because we need everyone to have had their up todate vaccines ...

Come on now, mumlurker. You don't even sound convinced yourself. Maybe you are bored and just looking to add a suggestion to the bingo list.

I think you also included words like mutation in your list tilbury.

Anyway, I'm not going to argue about that with you, I have too much self respect.

Yep the ever moving goal posts. Next it'll be that we have to wait until half the country have had their second jab, and then a top up jab and then so on and so on forever until we die in our living rooms from boredom and loneliness.

I really feel like something is not quite right. How can we be in a worse position now?? I genuinely thought things would never be as bad as they were in April but here we are.

The summer switch to focusing on cases was a concern for a lot of us Chip.

It's not logical - particularly when we are talking about asymptomatic cases that have not been clinically diagnosed and only tested by a ramped up PCR test. I'd go so far as saying it's immoral. Plus the data does not point to asymptotic spread. It's almost tragic that this myth is still being peddled given that vaccines have now been rolled out and worldwide infections and deaths are decreasing.

What am I advocating for? Keeping the goalposts where they were, which is getting cases down (especially among the most vulnerable) by lockdown and vaccination so that the NHS isn’t overwhelmed and deaths reduce significantly. That’s a sensible and achievable goal. Then we start to reopen.

Oh grow up. There are no parents here to complain to. Everyone in government is trying to explain why the wishes are proving a little bit difficult to grant. They're doing their best but your kicking at the door has to be balanced against the exhausted staff in ICU, the new variants and the hard lessons learned coming out of previous lockdowns. There is a common goal here.

The global vaccination programme will take years.

Welcome to the new normal where we make things as normal as we can and travel as much as we can, but with restrictions.

And no, I'm not remotely gleeful about this. I just think you're a bit childish.

One vaccine doesn’t mean vaccinated. It’s a two vaccine course.

There are still lots of unknowns. Caution seems helpful where things are uncertain.

You are right, Sleepyquest - the problem is and always has been relying on the PCR test (an okay test for certain things, that's not the point here) to call someone a 'case' and then use 'cases' to justify lockdowns etc with no clinical diagnosis. It was wrong last September and it is wrong now.

I've bored everyone before about it my Signal Detection Theory explains the issue of false positives ('false alarms' in signal detection theory). It was a statistics element in my recent masters neuropsychology (I'm sure it is other stats degrees too). So I knew that I wasn't the only person that would recognise this is a problem. It was a red flag with how the data has been manipulated over the last few months.

Warning - I love talking about signal detection theory so don't get me started!

@itallworkedouthorribly

The global vaccination programme will take years.

Welcome to the new normal where we make things as normal as we can and travel as much as we can, but with restrictions.

Ah yes, just like we do for measles and HIV and polio!

Oh wait. No we don’t.

Once we’ve used mass vaccination to reduce the threat of this particular virus to the level of the threat we already face from multiple other viruses, we should either treat it like we treat measles/polio/flu/whatever or we should treat measles/polio/flu/whatever like we’re treating this. Second one seems like a bad idea.

@midgedude:

"It is impossible to fully shield the vulnerable as they tend to need things like food or doctors appointments"

I genuinely don't believe this. If we wanted to, we could. For example, by contracting one of the big supermarkets to adapt a fraction of their capacity towards sterilised delivery service.

Can't be that hard. Not when there's £ billions sloshing around.

I think it's more likely simply that many of those told to shield would say "why should I?", at which point the government has a problem.

Honestly, though, this is the route we should be going.

@itallworkedouthorribly

The global vaccination programme will take years.

Welcome to the new normal where we make things as normal as we can and travel as much as we can, but with restrictions.

Based on what science and what is the cost v benefit?

Who decided there had to be a 'new normal'? And who actually wants it? (except for the propaganda bots on social media)

Because half the people who end up in ICU are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Ie people who are working age.

Until they are also vaccinated, the nhs could still be overwhelmed.

Opening up workplaces and hospitality would result in another surge. If we wait until all over 50s are vaccinated, the pressure on nhs will be much less and they will be able to cope

It’s so frustrating. I just can’t understand why our borders are still open. Our main issue is the variants coming in now from what I understand but why are variants allowed in? If we just shut our borders; strictly enforced quarantine hotels for completely essential travel, and carried on vaccine - we could get back to a relatively normal life like oz/nz.

The amount of people I have seen go abroad for holidays whilst we are in lockdown is mental. How are these select special few able to jet off and have a lovely time whilst the rest of us are imprisoned in our own homes??

The only reason for travelling abroad should be to visit a dying loved one as far as I’m afraid.

For work purposes too such as transferring of good etc...

Why else would you need to go abroad?

I just don’t understand why the lack of cracking down on people still going on holiday and then not quarantining on their return is still ongoing.

@travellingtilbury

Get over yourself. I'm not advocating for permenant lockdown.