Oh look, another variant to be scared of..

[HopelessBlue192]

How predictable.

Enter stage left, New York variant. Couldn't be more obvious if they'd tried. Just couldn't have the numbers going down positively could we?

Viruses mutate, we all bloody know! Now give over.

@Fridacaninelo
It's worth taking a look at someone called Politics For All on Twitter - it's in one of their most recent breaking news tweets. Very helpful for keeping up to date!

I'm glad you have an interest in science and public health, and I'm also glad that you are able to avoid the very damaging impact that a lot of the out of context 'scientific reporting' is having on many people's mental health.

My mental health has been very much affected by lockdown, so much so I was briefly hospitalised.

I still don't believe in the censure of information, especially given the variant you're talking about hasn't even been hyped up as anything scary.

Nah censure of information is 1984 stuff. I'm just asking reporters to be responsible!

And I'm sorry to hear about your hospitalisation.

But, in this instance, how were they irresponsible? I haven't seen anything that suggests they have been, on any news site.

@Fridacaninelo

My mental health has been very much affected by lockdown, so much so I was briefly hospitalised.

I still don't believe in the censure of information, especially given the variant you're talking about hasn't even been hyped up as anything scary.

I'm so sorry thats awful, I came very close to that myself last March xx

@User133847

I don't think they are inventing things to keep us complacent. I think it's a pandemic.

It makes no sense why he would. Boris left it to the last possible moment to put any restrictions in place before each of the three lockdowns.

He's a people pleaser. He doesn't want to be delivering bad news.

@RedcurrantPuff

It must be nice to have blind unwaivering trust in the government always to be honest and deliver honest messaging without any ulterior motive. But I’m afraid I just don’t. You know that SAGE the government advisory group have behavioural scientists in their number. That’s what their job is, to ensure that messaging is put out in such a way as to secure compliance with measures. This was all widely publicised last year, I’m sure you’d find it if you looked if you wanted to.

Behavioural scientists are part of all aspects of public health, it's not some big secret or anything sinister. For example, encouraging women to get cervical smears, discouraging binge drinking and smoking etc.Their work is freely and widely published for anyone to look at.

Can just imagine OP posting on MN during WW2...

"How predictable. First the V1. Now enter stage left, V2 variant. Couldn't be more obvious if they'd tried"

The media don't make the variants.

Keeping us compliant

Yes, we need to comply in order to get out of this situation sooner.

Why do some suggest that the government has any ulterior motive?

Exactly what would they achieve by insisting on lockdown longer than is necessary? It's ridiculous

Politics For All on Twitter

Can we please give Twitter a break?

Why do some suggest that the government has any ulterior motive?

Because that is more comforting than the actual reality which they don't want to hear.

Boris 3rd wave shite was about Europe. Not a strain in the US.. also, where is this being reported? I’ve yet to see anything about it?

It’s not about wanting lockdown to continue. It’s cynically timed to keep us following rules just as we’re getting pissed off and a bit blasé

But you carry on thinking Boris and co have the interests of the population of this country at heart as opposed to their own self interest and lining their and their mates’ pockets. I’d really love to trust the government. It must be nice.

@Fridacaninelo

Why do some suggest that the government has any ulterior motive?

Because that is more comforting than the actual reality which they don't want to hear.

Nope.

We’re just not as naive as you

The government are liars. Politicians lie about everything all the time, always have. Why would they suddenly be honest?

@RedcurrantPuff

Nope.

We’re just not as naive as you

The government are liars. Politicians lie about everything all the time, always have. Why would they suddenly be honest?

What does the government have to gain by keeping lockdown restrictions in place longer than they need to be?

@HopelessBlue192

Absolutely tedious.

Of course the media doesn't need to report on every single bloody variant. We know it mutates. We know every virus mutates. We know some mutations can be more / less deadly / resistant to vaccines / help you grow another limb and develop antlers.

If there is a variant that is actually SHOWN to be more deadly / needs to induce more panic in people, then they should go ahead and write their headlines. But in the meantime, damaging an untold number of people's mental health and economic confidence, should NOT be done for something that may or may not have three cases that have appeared in millions of tests conducted.

Not a conspiracy theorist here btw. I'm just not blind to the idea that the government has their best interests at heart, and literally could not give a flying pig about us.

But they haven’t reported on every single variant. They probably haven’t reported on at least 99.9% of them. They are reporting on those that have been flagged up as under investigation or variants of concern. Which is fair enough, although it might possibly help if they stopped using variant as a shorthand for VUI/VOC. if nothing else it might stop the viruses mutate argument.

@Thewiseoneincognito

Drip, drip. So we have more variants, a third wave in Europe and our numbers have started to move upwards slightly. Lockdown roadmap is looking more like a doodle every day.

🙄

^Muchtoomuchtodo*
^^No, not scared anymore.
Sick to death of all of it and want things to gradually open up and we start to live a little again.^^

This, absolutely.

@tangerinelollipop

Keeping us compliant

Yes, we need to comply in order to get out of this situation sooner.

Why do some suggest that the government has any ulterior motive?

Exactly what would they achieve by insisting on lockdown longer than is necessary? It's ridiculous

Again, that's something that I have never said. I don't think that at all. I think the opposite. That's why they need us to keep compliant, to get out of lockdown quicker. Hence all the focus on mutations.

This is the result of anti-lockdown/anti-quarantine/herd immunity crowd.

It's a VIRUS.

The more people catch it, the more it mutates.

Pretty soon this bastard will be declared 'endemic' and there really will be no end in sight.

Like common colds or 'flu, it will just circulate, mutate and come around again.

You think it's made up? The virus doesn't exist and mutate to annoy you. 😂 Science really doesn't care.

And yes, it will constantly mutate when it's present in high levels in a community.

No government can be this useless by accident. Even one responsible for HS2

Taken by suprise by things we all knew were coming.
Closing borders a year after it would have made a difference.
Making promises then breaking them
Refusing to make any promises at all rather than setting better goals.
Hailing a vaccine as an answer and then undermining the vaccine as not the answer due to variant.
We must lockdown in winter so we can have a summer then we cant be free in summer as it will mean a winter lockdown is needed.

Flu season, variants, an understaffed NHS all existed a year ago. We now have a year of knowledge about the virus affects and behaviour. Yet our lives are measurably worse.
If you cant get planning to head in the right direction then either let someone else lead or admit you dont have a clue what you are doing and accept predicting a virus is not a reasonable goal to ask the country to give up everything to participate in.

Are you seriously believing more and more and more and more and more and more restrictions are eventually going to win the day?

How many years will it take for people to question the government? When we are still doing this is another year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years are you going to continue to think this is the only way and say ' gosh isnt this virus terrible'? Rather than isnt this government terrible.

The only thing they managed to get right it is accidently profiting from the shares they have in pharmaceutical companies and delaying an election. And miraculously eradicating flu.

Variants aren’t made up but the reporting of them at key time is to scare people into submission. Covid is not a hoax but my god it’s being used to the max to sneak in legislation and keep society in check. Either we are vaccinated and safer than before or we aren’t in which case I couldn’t care less anyway, we al have to die at some point.

Bingo. Ww2

@Dontforgetyourbrolly

Bingo. Ww2