Morning.
Haven't been able to read the Times article, but a high level announcement on Monday hmm?
I'm wondering if this Guardian article:
www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/31/fewer-quarter-covid-symptoms-request-test-uk-study
Is part of a gentle nudge and drip feed in the run up to that ni up to that to justify new / different measures. It doesn't talk about vaccine compliance, but the more back to basics bit of testing and self isolation.
This bit seems mildly contradictory though:
“The good news is that rates of adherence have been improving,” said James Rubin, an author on the paper and a professor of psychology of emerging health risks at King’s College London. But there is more work to be done, he said.
“We need to get more people to engage with the system, to recognise the symptoms, to get a test, and then to self-isolate and follow it through,” Rubin said. “We need to be getting people into the mindset of as soon as you’ve got one of these symptoms coming on, get a test. Don’t leave it a few days. Don’t wait until it resolves.
“What we don’t want is people who have got Covid out in the community, having contact with other people, spreading the infection. The more people with positive tests who self-isolate, the quicker we can get out of the restrictions we are currently in.”
I wonder if part of the drop off in testing / self-isolating even with symptoms is, as they say due to practicalities for those involved, alongside a possible feeling of security as the vaccine is being rolled out, and has been apparently proven so far to reduce transmission?
Also I wonder if in the run up to Easter they are hoping that all this stuff will reduce people stampeding to other parts of the country.
I'm in Bournemouth and we have this on our local rag's front page today:
www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/19201370.covid-dorset-police-prepares-influx-visitors-easter-weekend/
Effectively the police say:
“The travel guidance throughout the pandemic, it is slightly vague,” he said.
AD
“The message from government whilst in this phase of the lockdown, it is still broadly to stay local.
“That is the advice, it’s very difficult to enforce because there are no regulations behind it.
“I am not sure the stay local message is going to be very strong.
“We all know, with a bit of good weather this weekend, we are going to have a big influx of visitors.
“We rely on visitors but respect the place and protect the place.
“We don’t want to be picking up 100 tonnes of rubbish, we don’t want Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service putting out forest fires, we don’t want to be towing away vehicles.
“All of these things we saw last summer that led to declaring a major incident.
“We want to get back to preventing crime, bringing offenders to justice, making everywhere safe, rather than fining people for having a barbecue or hugging their mum, we want to come away from that.
Mr Vaughan said the force was not prepared for the behaviour of people last summer but will have extra patrols this time around."
I don't pay much attention to Easter - not a "Christian" and no egg demanding children in the family, and hadn't realised it was this weekend.
I naively assumed it would come after the 12th April so that people would have more retail / leisure options open to prevent clustering. Which was the problem last summer, the easing of restrictions was before enough things were open to cater for the visitors, and which is why the beaches were so packed and the major incident declared.
On the other hand, if we had everything open, more people may have come, so I can see it's a bit of a no-win scenario. And it did seem that there was no spike after that whole kerfuffle. Our numbers didn't start going up until November / December.
Only time will tell I guess, but I think there's a link between all this that may suggest we're really not out of the woods yet, either virus wise or regulations wise.
Sorry for all the waffle, sleep deprived due to ongoing family stress!