The Road Map: It’s Bollocks, Right?

[AllTheWayFromLondonDAMN]

So, I feel a bit like I’m going loopy. And I want to preface this by saying that I really hope I’m wrong. We are both secondary teachers with two small kids and this year has been an absolute bitch. Work for us has been hugely full in, whether it’s been in school or online teaching. Our infant school aged children have missed school terribly and their whole lives at this age are all about school, their little pals and their grandparents and cousins, all of whom have been off limits for months. So this has been far from fun for us and I have no desire for this to carry on (before anyone accuses me of that).

BUT this is all bollocks isn’t it? I know that numbers are going down and that we are doing really well with the vaccinations but this road map that Boris has announced.... it’s magical thinking isn’t it?!?! Less than eight weeks ago we were in dire straits, with tens of thousands of cases and more than 1500 people a day dying. This lockdown has choked those numbers down but now... throwing all the schools back in at once?! Telling us that we will be able to open up hospitality in only six weeks or so?! Saying we won’t even have to wear masks in just 16ish weeks?! REALLY? Because whilst I know that the warmer weather will make things better and of course the vaccine is making things better, it just feels a bit to me like Boris has decided that he’s bored of Covid so he’s just announcing that it’ll he done and dusted and we can just forget about it by midsummers day. Which seems.... bonkers. Bonkers when this has been going on a year now and very recently we were in huge trouble. Some areas of the country are still in huge trouble. Are other European countries talking like this? Like we can just say we have all had enough, so we are going to stop Covid?! Because if it was that easy wouldn’t we have done this a year ago?!?!

So am I the mad one who’s just being a pessimistic old boot, or is anyone else finding this whole change of tone just a bit.... weird?

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@PrincessNutNuts how long do you think we should stay in lockdown for ?
Zero covid is impossible to achieve here so what level do you think is ok?
What about the economy and people struggling with lockdown when is this important for you to consider?
its not easy but the governents plan seem ok , no dates are set in stone and depend on the data , we are opening bit by bit with plenty if time in between to access the data [/quote]
How's your year of NOT trying to suppress covid going for you?

How's the U.K. economy? How are people's struggles with finances, mental health, loneliness and home schooling going?

Since we've pretty much been in Tiers or Lockdown for the last 5 months I never understand why people think controlling covid means more Lockdown.

Last summer we needed about 3 more weeks to get in the zero covid zone. And an effective test and trace system that can find people off plane manifests when they literally had to show their passport.

Aiming for Zero Covid is how we get out of the cycle of restrictions and lockdowns.

@PrincessNutNuts we were never 3 weeks away from zero covid , we were not even testing all cases at the time, plus we need imports from across Europe via road , we are not nz and zero covid is prob impossible anywhere once things open ,
At no point has any scientist said we were 3 weeks away from zero covid ?? Or do you have a link to prove otherwise

What about the economy and people struggling with lockdown when is this important for you to consider?

By having our half hearted lockdowns and tiers, we've achieved a terrible death rate and one of the worst economic outcomes.

its not easy but the governments plan seem ok , no dates are set in stone and depend on the data , we are opening bit by bit with plenty if time in between to access the data

The roadmap set plenty of dates inc schools - 8th March seems set in stone! people are planning hols and lives around Bojo 's roadmap.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@PrincessNutNuts we were never 3 weeks away from zero covid , we were not even testing all cases at the time, plus we need imports from across Europe via road , we are not nz and zero covid is prob impossible anywhere once things open ,
At no point has any scientist said we were 3 weeks away from zero covid ?? Or do you have a link to prove otherwise [/quote]
Well I didn't even say we were three weeks from zero covid so...

@PrincessNutNuts i think your idea of test and trace from a manifest of a plane is also unworkable , you don't mention quarantine
Nz and australia have strict quarantine and still have odd case although not community case in nz although they have just had to have a mini lockdown , closed borders and strict quarantine is all thats keeping them low covid, not just tracing off a plane manifest as well as the difference in visitors is immense

Last summer we needed about 3 more weeks to get in the zero covid zone. And an effective test and trace system that can find people off plane manifests when they literally had to show their passport.*

So you didn't say that then

@jasjas1973 but he clearly said these are earliest dates , I myself have booked around them but am fully aware they are changeable as it was said multiple times.
Also schools was also most likely one to go on time as first thing , although my dc school won't have all back until a little later due to tests etc
If people can't listen and don't want to hear that the dates are changeable thats their problem as it was very very clear

@jasjas1973 yet we had one of the strictest lockdowns according to the papers , and economy isn't as bad as thought if you listened to todays budget
The death rate is high as it is across a lot of europe and time will tell as to why its a little too early to speculate but there may be various factors of which some restrictions or lack of may be part of but their will also be other reasons .
Europe seems especially hard hit despite slightly different ways of dealing with

@PrincessNutNuts
You clearly said we were about 3 weeks away from zero covid zone ?

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

* Last summer we needed about 3 more weeks to get in the zero covid zone. And an effective test and trace system that can find people off plane manifests when they literally had to show their passport.*

So you didn't say that then

I should stop using the term "zero covid". It confuses people.

I said that three more weeks would've got us into the zone where a policy of maximum suppression was highly ikely to be successful.

Then we could've been one of the 100 countries on earth that regularly reports less than 100 covid deaths a week.

Instead of the one that has had 50,000 covid deaths so far this year. And will hit 150,000 in total this month.

But don't worry. The government is going for the exact opposite of max suppression. So Lockdown 4 and probably 5 are inevitable

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@PrincessNutNuts i think your idea of test and trace from a manifest of a plane is also unworkable , you don't mention quarantine
Nz and australia have strict quarantine and still have odd case although not community case in nz although they have just had to have a mini lockdown , closed borders and strict quarantine is all thats keeping them low covid, not just tracing off a plane manifest as well as the difference in visitors is immense
[/quote]
That's max suppression. You act when you've got 17 cases, not let the virus run hot at 100,000 cases a week for 3 months then wonder where all these new variants learned to evade immunity.

I take it Princessnutsnuts you dont believe the vaccines will be effective in suppressing or indeed that we learn to live with it to a certain extent? So you truly believe it is all going to go and we get lockdown 4 and 5?

And also I think it is unfair to compare us to anything other than Europe - where indeed we have made some missteps and are at the top but we would never have been what you think we should have been

www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-death-rate-europe-by-country/

and Zero Covid doesnt confuse people its meaning “the absence for a suitable period of time of community transmissions” is clear.

How else can you judge than by results?

I think we can tell that our government's covid policy for the last 14 month is the wrong one because we have one of the worst 4 excess death tolls however you measure it.

(More countries will be added to this as their info is released, but there aren't many that will overtake us.)

Apart from with vaccinations were to be fair we have excelled. So as I said do you not believe that will work if you are looking at 2 more lockdowns!

I dont think anyone will argue we made some missteps in 2020 but you cant measure the 2021 plan on the 2020 one.

What is interesting though is that the Budget does seem to follow the roadmap not having delays!

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

Regardless of how the government set out the dates, the media reported it slightly differently, in that they were dates where certain things would happen and thats what folk heard.

As to our economic hit and death rate, thats unarguable, our Covid spending/borrowing is also one of the highest in the word too.

Strict LD's ? not from what i've experienced, economically though v damaging.
Look at the infection rates? with a v successful vaccination program and LD, still very high.

@Quartz2208

I take it Princessnutsnuts you dont believe the vaccines will be effective in suppressing or indeed that we learn to live with it to a certain extent? So you truly believe it is all going to go and we get lockdown 4 and 5?

And also I think it is unfair to compare us to anything other than Europe - where indeed we have made some missteps and are at the top but we would never have been what you think we should have been

www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-death-rate-europe-by-country/

and Zero Covid doesnt confuse people its meaning “the absence for a suitable period of time of community transmissions” is clear.

NZ is famously pursuing a policy of zero covid and they also famously currently have community cases.

That's why max suppression is better. People get hung up in the zero part.

The point is, whose year would you rather have had? Ours or theirs?

As for vaccines, it's mostly maths.

The open up begins next Monday before about 31 million of the JCVI 9 vulnerable groups are fully protected with their second dose, and before the other half of the country has had any vaccine at all. And the herd immunity goalposts have moved. Israel think 90% fully vaccinated is needed Next Monday we'll be at about 2%.

Also, in sex education they taught us that the pill is 99% effective so if 3 million women are using it, 270,000 of them will get pregnant.

There are 66 million of us.

And our governments "cases don't matter" high prevalence policy creates the ideal conditions for the virus to get tons of practice at evading immunity.

From memory, I think Germany seemed to be doing well with test and trace in the summer and early autumn. They suppressed their first wave well and I think they were quickly identifying and squashing local outbreaks when they reopened e.g. I definitely remember reports of an outbreak in a meat factory which was brought back under control by tracing cases and bringing in local restrictions. Yet in late autumn, a second wave began which has been much worse than their first wave (although still not as bad as ours).

So even if we'd got cases lower before unlocking in the summer and had a better test and trace system, doesn't Germany's experience show that wouldn't necessarily have avoided the autumn rise in cases?

Well everyone I know understand the dates are changeable and even the media did say earliest . If people can't actually reaf it properly or listen then there is no hope
And no we don't have all the data yet and won't for some time , we learn more every day, the same papers printed how we had one if the strictest lockdowns.

@Quartz2208

Apart from with vaccinations were to be fair we have excelled. So as I said do you not believe that will work if you are looking at 2 more lockdowns!

I dont think anyone will argue we made some missteps in 2020 but you cant measure the 2021 plan on the 2020 one.

What is interesting though is that the Budget does seem to follow the roadmap not having delays!

This years open up is very similar to last year's except last year's had specific limits such as "If the R goes above 1 we go back into restrictions" (which they quietly shelved when it happened) and this year's has vague stuff like "so long as the vaccination programme continues successfully" type stuff. What's "successfully"? It's the others are "it's not collapsing the NHS yet and the vaccines work "sufficiently" (What's sufficiently?) and "we're not worried about the variants of concern" I'm paraphrasing but the actual wording is easy to look up.

No thresholds. No hard limits. Just woolly "You guys didn't mind 12,000 covid deaths/400,000 cases a month in the autumn, so we're assuming you won't mind this."

@PrincessNutNuts you cannot compare a population of 6 million to 67 million
Use comparisons of similar size and countries , like italy , spain etc as also they are in europe and more like us socially etc
You are choosing to pick a country eith no real comparisons
The lockdown is quite slow and things can and will go back if the data is not favourable that is clearly been said .
Our vaccine programme is going pretty well and hopefully that continues and we had to attempt to come out of lockdown soon before more took it upon themselves
Cases will likely go up when the schools go back thats to be expected , hopefully nit by much but we are in a very different place to many other places so like for like comparisons are not useful

@CornishYarg

From memory, I think Germany seemed to be doing well with test and trace in the summer and early autumn. They suppressed their first wave well and I think they were quickly identifying and squashing local outbreaks when they reopened e.g. I definitely remember reports of an outbreak in a meat factory which was brought back under control by tracing cases and bringing in local restrictions. Yet in late autumn, a second wave began which has been much worse than their first wave (although still not as bad as ours).

So even if we'd got cases lower before unlocking in the summer and had a better test and trace system, doesn't Germany's experience show that wouldn't necessarily have avoided the autumn rise in cases?

They ignore Christian Drosten too much and succumb to pressure to open up from their own right wing libertarians too often. They have their own Heneghan and Gupta too declaring the pandemic over and that covid deaths are being over-reported etc.

But check out their position on the FT's excess mortality chart.

I'd still rather be them than us.

One dose of the vaccine reduces hospitalisation by over 90%. Over 20 millions adults have now been vaccinated. The vaccine also reduces transmission. It doesn’t matter if Covid rampages through kids - they don’t get sick with it.

The thing that’s bonkers is that it’s taking so long to unlock. I’d be doing it much faster, apart from international travel which I’d be much more restrictive on.

@PrincessNutNuts they have set what the measures are and we all know they will act on variants as they have before
This is very different to last year
We are due to speed up the vaccinations as more come in
Its not wolly but they won't list every scenario
I.e vaccine rollout going well could mean if supplies run short , we step back , if a new variant shows resitance and is high we step back, if new data shows more doses are needed we step back. By being a little more vague means lots of scenarios will be taken into account.
Also they have to consider the economy , compliance levels and so much more

@PrincessNutNuts have you looked at uk excess death rates over 10 years rather than 5 ?

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@PrincessNutNuts you cannot compare a population of 6 million to 67 million
Use comparisons of similar size and countries , like italy , spain etc as also they are in europe and more like us socially etc
You are choosing to pick a country eith no real comparisons
The lockdown is quite slow and things can and will go back if the data is not favourable that is clearly been said .
Our vaccine programme is going pretty well and hopefully that continues and we had to attempt to come out of lockdown soon before more took it upon themselves
Cases will likely go up when the schools go back thats to be expected , hopefully nit by much but we are in a very different place to many other places so like for like comparisons are not useful[/quote]
NZ are the one everyone knows. And they're the best at max suppression.

But since all but 4 countries on earth are doing better than us, I'd cheerfully compare with anybody you like.

But if you pick countries that are pursuing the same stupid policies as us it doesn't really work as a criticism of max suppression does it?

Even if they're doing a slightly better job of the same stupid policies than we are