How long before the UK become India

[Dandylioness1]

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?

God, some people really are going to be sad when this is over, aren't they?

Perhaps with continental drift but it will take a long time.

Oh dear.

Op I’m guessing you also suffer from anxiety or mental health issues? There seems to be a lot of it on here.

The Uk won’t end up like India. India has 1.4 billion people and a very slow vaccine program and a poor health service. It’s a different animal.

You habe forever is basically the answer and no you don’t need to prep.

The U.K. won’t become India. However, there could be an uptick in cases in UK Cities with large Indian communities. Those who have travelled back are quarantining with families here and not everyone in those families will have had the vaccine. As someone mentioned above, the sad situation in India actually indirectly benefits the U.K. as those communities here will more likely come forward to have the vaccine now.

We really need to be looking to send Oxygen/PPE and vaccines to India rather than looking on shocked and doing nothing. It is verging on voyeurism. Also perhaps any practical help we can provide with the issue of dead bodies.

@tara66

Perhaps with continental drift but it will take a long time.

Right this thread is so out of touch with reality.

The vaccine does not have great efficiency against these newer variants of Covid19. Around 30-50%.

That's why they are making new vaccines as we speak, for later this year.

However whilist we are making new vaccines the virus, now has even more hosts, to form even more variants. Its highly likely that the next wave is much worse, we can only prey.

No, we won't have as high case numbers as India, as we do not have a 1+ billion population. Although we could have a variant which becomes even more transmissible. Don't forget we still have one of the worst deaths per population in the world.

The OPs concerns/ideas are totally valid and I think people are only deluding themselves, if they think otherwise.

It's highly likely we will see another wave later this year and its likely to be the same as wave 2 or much worse. Although that is dependent on behaviour.

@tara66 wins the thread.

I imagine a very low % of Indians live in old people care homes.
Median age of Indians < 27 years old (UK ~41 years old)
Their health system is weak. NHS may not be highly resilient, but it's not weak either.
About 25% of Indian population lives in terrible poverty; if you get ill in this social group, you get better or you die. What you don't get is great medical treatment to stay alive with big health problems or dementia (main RF for covid death).
And UK can afford to Lockdown.

It's just so different from UK. That's why UK can't 'become' India.

Dr Jeffrey Barrett, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, says it is possible there could also be a cause-and-effect relationship with the new variant, but there is still a lack of evidence.

He points out that the India variant has been around since late last year: "If it is driving the wave in India it has taken several months to get to this point which would suggest it's probably less transmissible than the Kent B117 variant.

From the BBC Website.

The situation in India is awful, but simply cannot be compared to the situation in the UK for various reasons, including our vaccination programme here.

Look on with sympathy. But stop terrifying yourself and others online.

I don't understand why 4 days notice was given. Surely if a country needs to be put on the red list it needs to be put on it straight away

(name changed)

Story seems to be accommodation and logistics, and it's been much the same when previous countries went on the red list...

Once the decision was made to put all passengers arriving directly from India into managed quarantine there was a bit of a scramble to find airport hotels willing to be part of the scheme at a price HMG were willing to pay - many of the UK hotels are already trying to position themselves to take advantage of a hoped for increase in domestic customers post lockdown in the next few weeks and perhaps didn't want the hassle involved in having a section of the hotel quarantined off until further notice.

There's also the issue of getting things like buses/staff organised for the increased amount of transport that would be needed from the Terminals to the hotel..it can't be organised instantly.

So you have to either accept a few days delay before measures can take effect or you have to have an absolutely instant flight ban until the system ramps up and can cope with the new restrictions...

Unnecessary scaremongering from the OP. You are comparing apples with pears.

I'm glad I don't know you in real life OP. You sound like a bag of fun at parties.

@TheGuru87 we don’t know if the Uk has the highest deaths as there are a lot of countries that don’t report every death, one being India. You can’t even look at the average deaths in the last 5 years as there isn’t any data, you have to guess. The UK is very good at data, we know exactly who has had the vaccine, how many 1st and 2nd doses have been given. How is India going to manage that when not even every birth is registered?

Sorry I should there is data but it’s not very accurate

Missing the point entirely - but a couple of comments: "the deeply dim" and "IQ of a cucumber" have made me laugh outloud.

Sorry, not wanting to derail the thread ... as you were ...

@Dandylioness1

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?

Phrases such as

"We should go the herd immunity route"

"Take it on the chin"

and

"Let it rip through the population"

seem to have vanished from the covid discourse, so hopefully we won't see "India" here.

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if I am going over old ground, but we did get quite close to it here.

Hospitals were rationing oxygen.

People died at home who needed to be admitted to hospital.

People spent days in hospital car parks in ambulances because there were no beds inside.

And our deaths per million is still one of the worst of all the rich countries whose stats we can trust.

People have honestly thrived on all this haven't they and only on mumsnet do I see an almost feverish desire to be in permanently locked down and under controlled measures whilst other diseases you are more likely to die of run rampant. You cannot compare the UK with places like India and South America.

FFS give it a rest OP.

Our death per million actually is not that different anymore to many of the other countries and I suspect when it is studied in years to come Europe as a whole will be fairly similar.

We didnt come close at all to India - rationing oxygen/spending days in car parks though awful isnt quite what is happening in parts of India

I think as well we forget how awful the Kent variant actually is - the one we have been through is the only that does seem to be more deadly (though has not evaded vaccines)

I don't believe we will see scenes like India, for several reasons:

• we have been operating under lockdown / restrictions. India has not and has held large festivals in recent weeks. A bit like our post-Christmas wave in January when everyone got together over the holidays and spread it.

• Our population is not as densely packed, nor do we have the same proportion of multi-generational households.

• The UK vaccine programme has been a success, which will serve to mitigate the effects of a new wave (not eliminate one, but it will help). India's vaccine programme has been slow to start.

• We have high availability of tests, India is struggling.

• Our healthcare system, whilst being severely underfunded over several decades, has not been neglected to the extent India's has.

• The UK has more robust infrastructure (e.g. sanitation and waste disposal services) than India.

• Our levels of poverty are lower. Part of the reason India is seeing high deaths is because too many of the population simply can't afford healthcare, can't afford not to work, live in crowded and often unsanitary conditions, and the high volume of migrant workers fleeing the city hubs back to their families in rural areas mean the virus has lots of easy ways to spread.

• Government corruption (although there is much to say about recent BoJo allegations, that's a slightly different thread!) means that there is a thriving black market for basics such as oxygen and drugs. The hospitals can't compete. The hospitals and the courts are in some regions fighting with the government to try and secure supplies.

So no, I don't think we'll end up like India. I do think we might have a third wave, although the data on that seems 50:50 at the moment. If we do have a third wave, I believe it will be the smallest yet.

Do you really think we will see scenes like this in the UK?

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-people-dying-on-pavement-as-coronavirus-crisis-stretches-indias-healthcare-system-to-limit-12285080

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/24/india-daily-covid-death-toll-hits-new-record-amid-oxygen-shortages

[quote Baileysforchristmas]Do you really think we will see scenes like this in the UK?

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-people-dying-on-pavement-as-coronavirus-crisis-stretches-indias-healthcare-system-to-limit-12285080

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/24/india-daily-covid-death-toll-hits-new-record-amid-oxygen-shortages[/quote]
No. British people died obediently at home after being told they didn't qualify for hospital admission.

And Britain imposed DNRs on over 75s and told care homes not to call an ambulance

Before being too quick to share sad images of "people dying on pavements", it might be worth finding out what they're really showing and where

I posted links upthread about scenes like this from China which turned out to be no such thing - also images of people in Italy, sitting outside hospitals which allegedly no longer had room for them, except they were photos of TB sufferers in a different country completely

As said, nobody denies that Covid has brought awful problems, but let's not forget the utter irresponsibility shown by too much of the media in this

The UK’s not perfect but it’s not India and never will be, I can’t believe people want to put the UK in the same category. 800 million poor how many people do you think died at home that no one knew about? a lot of deaths were never recorded and still aren’t being recorded.