Was feeling positive but this just seems like we are being primed for the next few years?!

[Swoonforpeterbishop]

I know it’s a daily fail link and apologise for that but the way this is worded just feels like we are being primed to expect restrictions for a couple of years just as I was starting to feel hopeful.

I get that we need to react if new variants emerge but it feels like as soon as we have a bit of hope along comes someone to tell us we could still face troubled times ahead. I think I need to stop reading the news as it’s getting to me now. I’m sure Witty is just being realistic but telling us there will definitely be a variant that evades the vaccines that will send us back to square one?!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9427169/Chris-Whitty-warns-Britain-vulnerable-Covid-two-years.html

Im probably being melodramatic as I didn’t sleep well last night, it’s the fail and quite frankly I’ve had enough but I’m starting to feel like respite all the good progress there’s still no end in sight. And yes I know we will have to learn to live with it and we will manage it like flu, but it seems like this line of thinking is for a few years down the line not any time soon

It says in the article that other scientists have said it's extremely unlikely a vaccine resistant variant will emerge. Chris Whitty can no more predict the future than any of us. No point in worrying unless it actually happens.

Don’t read the Daily Mail.
Not for political reasons but because of all the papers they are one of the worst offenders for getting your attention by a constant yoyo of ‘We’re all doooooomed!’ ‘Everything’s going to be fine!’ ‘We’re all dooooomed!’ stories (interspersed with a bit of anti Europe stirring which adds to the stress no matter where you stand on Brexit).
The truth is usually more nuanced in the story than the headline but the scary headline will have done its job in freaking you out.

I’ve stopped watching the news before bedtime or else I will lie awake worrying, as I have done a lot over the past year. Also when I read the headlines, if there is any doom and gloom I skim past.

I think if restrictions means wearing face coverings in shops and on public transport, and things such as screens, limited numbers in shops and no changing rooms, then to reduce flu, Covid 19 infections and other illnesses and give the NHS a break next winter, I'd accept that.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/01/no-lockdowns-britain-will-treat-coronavirus-like-flu-says/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

This is a more positive take on what he said.

Chris Whitty has always said Covid isn't going to go anywhere,but with vaccines etc it will become manageable

@Swoonforpeterbishop

I know it’s a daily fail link and apologise for that but the way this is worded just feels like we are being primed to expect restrictions for a couple of years just as I was starting to feel hopeful.

I get that we need to react if new variants emerge but it feels like as soon as we have a bit of hope along comes someone to tell us we could still face troubled times ahead. I think I need to stop reading the news as it’s getting to me now. I’m sure Witty is just being realistic but telling us there will definitely be a variant that evades the vaccines that will send us back to square one?!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9427169/Chris-Whitty-warns-Britain-vulnerable-Covid-two-years.html

Im probably being melodramatic as I didn’t sleep well last night, it’s the fail and quite frankly I’ve had enough but I’m starting to feel like respite all the good progress there’s still no end in sight. And yes I know we will have to learn to live with it and we will manage it like flu, but it seems like this line of thinking is for a few years down the line not any time soon

Nope he isn't saying square one - vaccine resistant and totally invalidating the vaccines are different things - the latter is highly unlikely.

But efficacy means different things depending on what you're measuring. If you're measuring benefit against severe illness, then all the vaccines are effective against all the strains and that's not likely to change soon - at least not in those with fully working immune systems.

If you're measuring how much they reduce the ability of the virus to spread - that's something else and we are likely to see strains come along fairly quickly that get around that.

At the moment there's a lot of noise - a lot of people are saying things and then it's being taken out of context, mixed with what others are saying and a false narrative is being written by the press. The truth is we don't yet know how the next few years are going to pan out and NOBODY has yet put forward a credible and honest plan for "living with covid" - we don't know what the virus is going to do next, how long "immunity" lasts, nor if boosters are going to work. It's for all these reasons that the approach is cautious. That is what I'm guessing Whitty was trying to say.