Savage article in the Times Sunak caused the Second Wave

[vera99]

archive.vn/icVku. They don't hold back with pointing the finger of blame at the richest man in British political history. Hope you enjoyed your freebies

It's a good read. I completly agree with the point that the eat out to help out scheme wasnt about protecting restraunt income as that could have been achieved if take away was allowed but rather about getting everyone back out on the high street spending their money.
The constant mixed message from the goverment is my biggest issue.

Eat out to help out was a moronic idea. With a highly transmissible virus on the decline let’s get millions of people to share indoor spaces and toilets. The ridiculous clip of him serving in a Wagamama makes me want to vomit.

Where are the strategists in government, why does no one look at the whole picture and connect the dots??

The eat out to help out was definitely to get people back out there again. The problem was that people didn't keep a distance from those not in their own household and whole thing encouraged mingling so when people returned from their holidays/ trips elsewhere with covid acquired elsewhere and carried on mingling, it took off again.

It wasnt just eotho,
It was mainly schools and unis. With no masks unlike the rest of the world.
Foreign holidays with people not quarantining.
Then xmas shopping.
People mixing at xmas causing spike 4d later.
If they were to do eotho it should be outside only
Oh and not including runny nose etc in symptoms.
And not quarantining a whole family of a child contact - waiting for symptoms when theydont get them -doh!!

EOTHO began when hospitality reopened on July 4th. Restaurants were so busy they ere turning away covers. Had that been a significant factor, we’d have expected cases to begin rising noticeably by the end of July. We didn’t see cases begin to rise exponentially again until mid September, when the weather (and therefore our habits) changed and schools and universities returned.

It was a stupid idea, complacent to the max. When we should’ve been carefully easing our way out of lockdown and putting into place measures to prevent / negate the winter shit show, we were doing the exact opposite.

Schools were enhancing community spread slightly but representative of the local area. Universities had young people spreading the virus throughout the country from different areas. There were over 1000 cases at the University local to me which very quickly affected the local areas and initiated that third spike in cases.

But people were desperate to get put, they didn't need persuading 🤔

And as a pp had said, EOTHO pre-dates the second wave by some time.

If you look at the year's stats it's pretty clear the virus is more seasonal than anything.

Vitamin D maybe?

Get out

What do you mean by ‘Hope you enjoyed your freebies’?

I thought EOTHO ran from 3-31 August, not July.
On the few occasions we used it we were very socially distanced, often outside and felt very safe.

Rates started to increase mid September. It can hardly be a coincidence that this was a couple of weeks after children returning to school, students returning to university, people returning to offices and using public transport.

We enjoyed EOTHO and mainly ate outside. Cases began to rise before schools and universities went back right at the start of September. I think it was largely due to people returning from foreign holidays.

@ComtesseDeSpair

EOTHO began when hospitality reopened on July 4th. Restaurants were so busy they ere turning away covers. Had that been a significant factor, we’d have expected cases to begin rising noticeably by the end of July. We didn’t see cases begin to rise exponentially again until mid September, when the weather (and therefore our habits) changed and schools and universities returned.

The eotho scheme only ran in August and if you read the article it states in the first 2 weeks of the scheme the cases increased by somewhere between 8 and 16% so started the upturn. Yes those other factors obviously play a role as well but it's the combination of poor decisions of the goverment that caused the spread.

That's political reporting. Genome testing has scientifically proven what went wrong; travel was allowed to Spain. That led to most cases in the UK: www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/30/coronavirus-strain-from-spain-accounts-for-most-uk-cases-study.
Anyone visiting family is fair enough, people just wanting a beach holiday in the midst of a pandemic are not the type of people who take enough personal responsibility to isolate on their return.
The new strain might have been controlled better if Spain has tested for cases from their Eastern European farm workers and not allowed nightclubs to open.
I hope both countries will be a little more cautious this year; but probably not.

If you look at the year's stats it's pretty clear the virus is more seasonal than anything.

More seasonal in some places than others?

ONS infection survey figures are more reliable than the reported positive tests as they only pick up those who actually go for a test.
Summary of the number of people in England who had COVID in the weeks ending:
6 August - 28k
13 August - 25k
20 August - 28k
25 August - 27k
5 September - 30k
10 September- 60k
19 September - 104k

So actually stayed stable all the way through August and grew exponentially from mid September onwards...

On the BBC Horizon programme the other week, genomic testing seemed to point the finger at summer holiday makers, not eotho.

All through the early summer months, the original Covid strain was the dominant strain, from late August the Spanish strain came to the UK, and throughout Sept/Oct was the dominant strain..... then came Kent.

My bad. I started eating and drinking out as soon as everywhere opened again on July 4th, as did plenty of others. EOTHO seems like an entirely odd thing to pick out of a crowd as the cause of a second wave, when we know a) that evidentially your can link rises in cases to a range of events and b) we know the largest risk factors for transmitting Covid (and other seasonal viruses.)

That graph shows deaths, not transmission. There’s some correlation of the two, obviously, but a country with an old and unhealthy population (which we know the UK has, since our highest priority vaccine groups encompass half the entire population) is more likely to see a greater number of deaths from a virus which affects the old and unhealthy most badly.

but a country with an old and unhealthy population

Did they only become especially old and unhealthy in January?

Fully agree with MRex and ceeveebee.

ONS survey results and genomic sequencing both indicate that EOTHO was not a major contributor to the autumn spike. Cases were flat throughout summer even though most of the economy was open. The second wave picked up in very late August and early September with people returning from holidays.

noblegiraffe

UK extreme spike was driven by the new variant so yes, the impact of seasonality will be different across different countries depending on the prevalent variant. However all European countries seem to be experiencing seasonality headwinds in autumn-winter and tailwinds in spring-summer.

If he's so powerful perhaps we should ask him to get rid of the virus.

It was more likely seasonality.

This is about Murdoch helping to pave the way to PM for Gove.

EOTHO was one of the contributors to the second wave but holidays with no quarantine and schools/unis also contributed. If EOTHO was the only problem we would have seen a rise in cases everywhere but there were massive regional variations. I live in the SE where cases rose during November lockdown and the increases were exponential in December - that was mainly new variant /schools.

EOTHO was a good idea in the sense that it gave people confidence to visit pubs, coffee shops and restaurants because many were gripped by The Fear and opting for takeaways because they felt it was safer.

Surely thats the reverse of good.
People were being sensible and knew takeaways were better but were convinced into going into pubs.

I think that is also true with schools it forces people who were being cautious out.