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How long before the UK become India

440 replies

Dandylioness1 · 24/04/2021 00:47

The scenes coming from India right now are petrifying.

Takes me back to the scenes from Italy last year.

My question, how long do you think we have until we are seeing similar scenes here.
Do we need to be prepared for this?

OP posts:
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5
MonsterMash2210 · 24/04/2021 08:43

@TheGuru87

I find it odd that so many people are dismissing the OPs ideas, as some sort of hysteria.

It's a valid point, we already know the vaccines are not as effective give against the Brazilian and SA variant.

The new variant in India has more mutations, these variants are becoming more prevalent in the UK.

As the vaccines are not as effective and not everyone has been vaccinated yet, it's highly likely we will face another wave.

I fully agree at some point there will be another wave of cases. Most likely in the Autumn/ Winter. Possibly sooner.

I am hopeful however that it won’t automatically translate into another wave of hospitalisations and deaths.

We just need to remain cautious and keep an eye on our figures.

mrshoho · 24/04/2021 08:43

@EvilPea

How are Brazil doing? They were India a few weeks back with no oxygen, dead on benches etc.
Desperately.
Joisanofthedales · 24/04/2021 08:43

thats link not kink Hmm

randomer · 24/04/2021 08:43

I can't bear to look at the images coming out of India. Its desperately sad for those people.
But please, sadly in many areas of India, the hygene, infrastructure. literacy , climate and so on is a world away from the UK.

MRex · 24/04/2021 08:44

Great to hear people are donating to Covax.
If anybody can also recommend a charity that's particularly helping on the ground then please do, I don't know which to give to.

Horizons83 · 24/04/2021 08:47

@thinkingaboutLangCleg

We’ve never closed our borders or had a realistic, enforced quarantine policy. Even now anyone can travel here from a ‘red list’ country via a safer country. So we will see increasing transmission and new variants soon after they appear in any other country.
But they would still need to quarantine in a hotel if they had been in a red list country in the past 10 days. Whether or not anyone is verifying that at the border is a different matter.
Teateaandmoretea · 24/04/2021 08:49

Exactly! Proof that lockdowns were needed and we should all be grateful we didn't have scenes like India here.

Well done. You have taken from the constant coverage exactly what the government wanted you to.

Springersrock · 24/04/2021 08:50

[quote 4PawsGood]@quarentini

We are endemic not pandemic at the moment in England.

I don’t think you’ve understood these words properly.[/quote]
This was all over the news yesterday

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/inews.co.uk/news/uk-covid-pandemic-over-endemic-difference-vaccine-coronavirus-oxford-professor-969538/amp

SueSaid · 24/04/2021 08:50

'I can't bear to look at the images coming out of India. Its desperately sad for those people. But please, sadly in many areas of India, the hygene, infrastructure. literacy , climate and so on is a world away from the UK.'

Didn't stop people comparing us to NZ, an isolated country with a tiny population.

Restrictions are needed, lockdowns are needed. We should be very grateful that our nhs managed the surge last year and this and if, God forbid, we get another then India is proof we would again need tight restrictions in place. I hope the mn flouters would now agree after witnessing the horror in India.

Lovemusic33 · 24/04/2021 08:51

What a crazy scaremongering thread.

India is a poor country, they haven’t been vaccinating to the extent we have, their health services are pretty poor, hygiene is pretty poor so how can you compare them to the uk, and to say things will happen here? We should be helping India, this was always going to happen, it was always going to be disastrous in poor countries.

SueSaid · 24/04/2021 08:51

'Well done. You have taken from the constant coverage exactly what the government wanted you to.'

And still the conspiracy theorists wang on. It is the news. Inconvenient for the deniers sadly.

Teateaandmoretea · 24/04/2021 08:53

It's a valid point, we already know the vaccines are not as effective give against the Brazilian and SA variant.

The new variant in India has more mutations, these variants are becoming more prevalent in the UK.

As the vaccines are not as effective and not everyone has been vaccinated yet, it's highly likely we will face another wave.

No we don’t know any of that. It is a possibility that is under investigation.

The evidence from India is that AZ is working incredibly well against the variant that is dominant in India.

For context people who had the original SARs have some immunity against Covid and that is approx 20% different. These mutations are tiny percentages, less than 1.

We will have other waves though for sure, as we do for all endemic viruses. But we need to start accepting it as our normal life risk which is what it is now.

Cornettoninja · 24/04/2021 08:54

@EvilPea

How are Brazil doing? They were India a few weeks back with no oxygen, dead on benches etc.
www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/world/americas/covid-brazil-hunger.html

Not great is an understatement.

Supersimkin2 · 24/04/2021 08:55

Why do MN let these lying scaremongering threads stay?

Teateaandmoretea · 24/04/2021 08:56

And still the conspiracy theorists wang on. It is the news. Inconvenient for the deniers sadly.

Don’t be so silly. It is clearly happening but is being positioned by the media in a certain way. Anyone who thinks for themselves is not a denier.

maddiemookins16mum · 24/04/2021 08:58

Oh get a grip. It’s worlds apart (in more ways than one).

minniemomo · 24/04/2021 08:59

We are not like India. We have far more health care professionals per million people, far more hospitals, far better average living conditions, no absolute poverty (we have relative poverty but this isn't the same). More resources like oxygen concentrators, ventilators, etc.

Then there's the fact our vaccination programme is so far advanced and 55% (as of a week ago, haven't seen the update for this week) had antibodies!

Radio4Rocks · 24/04/2021 08:59

It's a warning to the "let's get back to normal and abandon masks and social distancing" loons.

We have to be careful. It's not hard.

LesleyA · 24/04/2021 09:00

Did laugh and get your last point. Had possibly seen at is mean spirited but I see it wasn’t meant that way. Thanks

JennyBond · 24/04/2021 09:02

ATM things are looking good for the west but they also looked good last July August too.

Did they? We didn’t have a viable vaccine so it was always known cases would increase once lockdown restrictions were eased, particularly as we moved to winter for the northern hemisphere (Europe and North America being big drivers).

I don’t think you can compare now to then at all.

LastChanceToChange · 24/04/2021 09:03

@Radio4Rocks

It's a warning to the "let's get back to normal and abandon masks and social distancing" loons.

We have to be careful. It's not hard.

Why don't you want to get back to normal?
RaspberryCoulis · 24/04/2021 09:08

@bumbleymummy

Oh for goodness sake. Why on Earth would we be anything like India? Honestly, some people just seem to want something to worry about.
Completely agree. There is a hardcore of people on this board who have scaremongered from the start.

If you REALLY THINK that in a few weeks we will be like India you need to see the doctor urgently to address your mental health as you are quite obviously not thinking rationally.

RedToothBrush · 24/04/2021 09:09

Yes we can expect fires in hospitals caused by oxygen leaks and lots of funeral pyres in Hyde Park.

We can also expect the discovery of microbes on mars next week which obviously will be translated as "martians to declare war on earth".

Meanwhile back in reality, the UK has something India doesn't. Adequate infrastructure to deal with covid.

This is something we didn't have last year. We didn't have even in January. However we are just about there. I was saying back in August that i was worried because we didn't have this. But things have changed and we are coping much better on all fronts.

Controlling the virus is about early detection, prevention and mitigating the effects.

Our testing is now decent and we have the ability to detect new strains. Our tracing isn't perfect but its much improved and its easier with fewer cases. We have the ability to lockdown in a way India really doesn't. Our vaccination programme is doing well and is having real world impact in reducing transmission and hospitalisations. A study has found that once people are three weeks post vaccination their risk of hospitalisations is a fraction of what it was. So far whilst some vaccinations might be less effective against some of the new strains, they still reduce risk of hospitalisations. If you are unlucky enough to end up in hospital our hospitals are better equipped, have better safety standards and better staffed (in part thanks to lots of Indian doctors...). Your chances of survival are much much higher than they were 12 months ago. India has less nurses per head of population than the World Health Organisation recommend. For all the criticism of the NHS not being funded properly, its not compariable to India. We have more funds to 'buy our way out' of the problem too. Our understanding of covid generally is better so we have more chance of better outcomes. And whilst we are fat as a nation, generally our standard of health is better than in India. We are already advancing and scaling up plans for a 3rd booster shot for the Autumn so we have the bones of infrastructure in places to mitigate against possible new waves from new variants. At this point any new wave isnt likely to hit before the Autumn as our monitoring is so improved.

We are not India. India shows why lockdowns were needed here though.

Where we might have more issues is if there are huge issues with sickness in India we may see pressures on production of goods we import from there in the short term. Notably generic cheap drugs. We have tried to put measures in, in case of this issue... And that's what im more worried about for the UK in terms of the Indian crisis.

The UK has had a wave of the kent variant. We suffered for it, but we are now reopening without too many problems whilst countries which have had it and haven't vaccinated as many are having far more problems.

If all else fails we have stockpiled body bags. But i do not think its at all likely we'll need to use them on mass and turn parks into graveyards as was the original disaster planning anymore than i believe that martian invasion is imminent.

Sillysop92 · 24/04/2021 09:10

In short, we won’t for reasons already stated above. But get a bloody grip love eh! It is now endemic in the UK, no longer a pandemic.

EmeraldShamrock · 24/04/2021 09:12

Hope charity from Ireland is working on the ground in India. I'm sure there's many others.
I made a small donation, hopefully it helps one or two people eat.

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