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.

@FourTeaFallOut

The only numbers going upwards are testing figures, almost 1.9million on Sunday.

Of which under 6000 were positive. It's really, really not as bleak as @Thewiseoneincognito insists it is on every single thread

@99victoria

Our local authority identified a case of the SA variant about 6 weeks ago. Cue setting up a local testing centre, delivering (rather sporadically) home testing kits, asking everyone with a specific postcode to get tested. This resulted in long cues around local roads about 2 hours before the testing centre opened the next day - people 'terrified'. 24 hours later, the LA said they were only asking people to get tested so they could research 'community spread' not because everyone was about to drop dead. Three days of testing completed and things calmed down.

Then nothing. For 4 weeks. Results published this week. Over 4000 people tested. No cases of the SA variant found!

That was a useful exercise then

So you would rather we all sat on our arses and let the variants of concern (VoCs) run rampant?

Not clever - that is the quickest way back to square one. We need to be vigilant and stamp out VoCs as quickly as they start.

Had we done that back at the start of the original outbreak we wouldn't have suffered nearly as badly as we have.

Not clever - that is the quickest way back to square one. We need to be vigilant and stamp out VoCs as quickly as they start

Can it be done though? Has that ever been done successfully?

We need to get the world vaccinated to help stop this.
Covid will mutate, its what it does. Like the Flu, we will need to update vaccines to cope with it.
But we do need to keep vigilant to make sure our current vaccine works on the new mutations and to get the world vaccinated as quickly as possible before we open the world up again.

I'm pretty sure the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill pre-dates COVID, it's just that we're only hearing about it now. I'm opposed to the restrictions on protesting, but it isn't a sudden attempt by the Govt to keep people in lockdown.

Money - yep, the COVID contracts are as corrupt as fuck , no disagreement from me there. But to suggest they are cynically extending lockdown to make more money? No. Boris has been widely criticized for delaying lockdown, and reopening too soon - twice now. He doesn't want lockdown, if only because it's too much like hard work for his tastes.

The above was to @lightand btw.

@User133847

Boris and the government would not be bigging this up if it wasn't serious. I'm really worried now. I feel really afraid again.

Haven’t heard about this one yet so what has he been saying