Is this really the end

[Beatinghearts]

It look like. It’s finally the end of this and everyone will be getting back to normal.

And Africa is not a country. It is a lot of different countries, most of which have not remotely kept COVID at bay (Rwanda, as often the case, is the exception). The fact that mortality is low in most African countries is because the average age in SS Africa is in the early 20s.

@user1477391263

And Africa is not a country. It is a lot of different countries, most of which have not remotely kept COVID at bay (Rwanda, as often the case, is the exception). The fact that mortality is low in most African countries is because the average age in SS Africa is in the early 20s.

Who said Africa was a country?

Many (but not all) African countries put in place very tight border restrictions and quarantine. That's a fact.

Japans current 'surge' is nothing like a UK surge - and their response is very far from the UK one too (starting very simply with the fact that they're actually acting on the surge).

Japan population: 126 million approx.
Covid deaths: just over 10,000.

UK population: 68 million approx.
Covid deaths: 150,000.

London alone has suffered more deaths than the whole of Japan.

@CarrieAntoinette

Instead of beating this disease I think the plan is to let it linger for generations, so this isn't the end by a long chalk, no.

Out of instead what do you think is motivating that. Surely surely not.... A case of Eugenics? Ageism, racism, ableism (oh - and add in sexism, as women are, believe, at higher risk of developing long Covid).

It's been widely reported the worse affected groups in the last UK wave were South Asians, the disabled, and people living in poor housing and deprivation.

Surely government policy is not seriously planning on failing to protect these vulnerable and/or marginalised groups from unnecessary risk? Would they really go that far? I need a coffee to give my tired over suspicious head a wobble!

Long Covid...which extends the Covid risk to other groups including affluent able bodied white people. We don't yet know how many sufferers could have the heart, lung, or other damage seen in the scans some sufferers have managed to accesss. (many won't have had this yet).

Let us hope this was a slightly overly pessimistic prediction? With boosters Iikely coming in September and the next drug treatments, I'd have thought the plan remains to contain and mitigate? Once majority of population jabbed, transmission risks should be low. (,booster vaccines will be tweaked to help boost their effectiveness against the UK, South Africa, and Indian strains). Add in the new drugs treatments and (touching wood) it's looking more promising in the long term?

Israel is definitely the poster boy for the way out but they have used Pfizer and are keeping their borders as tight as a drum.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/parteek-bhatia/covid-crisis-what-we-can-learn-from-israel-31570/

Tealightsandd no sorry my comment wasnt at you we cross posted. It was at the poster who quoted lots of things as though widely read and educated but won't read Any thing else as "cba" and everything else isn't true apparently. Clearly beyond help and deserves to wallow in own misery

Japans current 'surge' is nothing like a UK surge - and their response is very far from the UK one too (starting very simply with the fact that they're actually acting on the surge).

We did act on the B117 surge? There was this whole national lockdown? For months?

You can make a reasonable case that we should have acted sooner, but to suggest that we didn’t just live through that miserable lockdown winter sounds a bit bizarre.

Blind optimism here in England yet again.
The virus will run rampant again once everyone decides it's too lovely and sunny to not follow simple actions like SD, mask wearing etc.

@Sidesaladofchips I’d rather ‘blind optimism’ and the chance to get on with my life instead of sitting around moaning about being thrust back into lockdown again as a result of a few sunny days and the act of meeting up with family. Each to their own. You’re entitled to shut yourself away if it makes you happy and let others crack on.

Sunny days aren’t the issue though. Has that still not gone in? On sunny days people are happy to be outside and outside transmission is a much lower risk.

As for running ‘rampant’ we have vaccines and they work astonishingly well. As long as hospital admissions remain low, then it’s not a major issue.

And oh god, before someone mentions variants, if a totally vaccine resistant one appears then yes we’re in trouble. The likelihood of that doesn’t seem strong and border control is a more important preventative measure than anything else.

Sunny days aren’t the issue though. Has that still not gone in?

Depends how you look at it, I suppose.

If you see it as a respiratory virus that’s transmitted by breathing, as all the research tells us it is, then of course it’s far less transmissible out of doors.

But, if you see it as a virus that’s spread by people not taking it seriously enough, then the biggest threat must be people visibly having fun outdoors, the uncaring bastards. Yes sure the VE Day socially distanced conga lines technically caused no spread at all, but somewhere, somehow, they must be The Real Problem.

There’s a kind of magical thinking in this, a sort of “if everyone just follows the right rituals and behaves miserably enough then the virus will stop smiting us!” When what’s actually going to stop the virus smiting us is vaccines, which work whether we are Taking This Seriously or not.

It might not be the end of the virus, but it is the end of lockdowns, for no other reason than people simply won't stand for them anymore.

Let's get back to normal now.

There’s a kind of magical thinking in this, a sort of “if everyone just follows the right rituals and behaves miserably enough then the virus will stop smiting us!”

You’re totally right. There was some very interesting stuff on here during the first lockdown (when we were at peak ‘sitting on a bench eating crisps makes you a murderer’) about self flagellation in the Middle Ages and how it peaked when the Black Death was most rife. Similar shit going on here..

Dear God, I've always thought I was a bit of an Eeyore but I'm a little ray of sunshine in comparison to some posters on here!

@Sidesaladofchips

Blind optimism here in England yet again. The virus will run rampant again once everyone decides it's too lovely and sunny to not follow simple actions like SD, mask wearing etc.

While do people say that SD is a 'simple action'? It is anything but. It completely goes against the way human beings normally interact, and makes large numbers of industries and activities unviable.

As for 'blind optimism', I'm not seeing that here. I'm seeing cautious optimism based on plummetting case rates and the roaring success of the vaccination programme. Nobody is suggesting we should go back to full stadia or unrestricted international travel just yet.

If there's 'blindness' here, it's from the crowd who are determined to be unrelentingly negative despite all the evidence supporting cautious optimism. Never let it be said that there aren't people who don't want this to be over, however much they will insist otherwise.

It's quite simple if the hospitals don't get overwhelmed then we get back to normal if they are then we don't. We will never have an 'Indian situation' here.

[quote vera99]Israel is definitely the poster boy for the way out but they have used Pfizer and are keeping their borders as tight as a drum.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/parteek-bhatia/covid-crisis-what-we-can-learn-from-israel-31570/[/quote]

Nothing shows in trials and real world data that there is much of a difference between the vaccines we have licensed.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

Dear God, I've always thought I was a bit of an Eeyore but I'm a little ray of sunshine in comparison to some posters on here!

They don't want Covid to stop being a thing of doom! People of Mumsnet are addicted to the power to spread gloom and, most of all, to criticise everyone else for not wanting eons of misery.

This from Sharon Peacock head of Covid Genonomics U.K. Comsortium:-

Sharon Peacock, head of the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK) and professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said she remained optimistic that the UK "in a good place", with the viruses in circulation "susceptible to vaccinations".
She told Times Radio: "Some people have predicted that a virus could emerge that is pretty resistant to vaccines, but we haven't seen any hint of that at the moment.
"And the idea that this could arise is based on models from previous viruses, not this current one, so at the moment, I remain optimistic that we're in a good place - that the viruses that are circulating are susceptible to vaccinations.
"And the key thing is to get on and vaccinate the world so that we can clamp down (on) disease. If we can reduce disease rates, then we reduce the risk of variants arising in the first place."
There was no evidence the India variant was resistant to the vaccine, she added.

How nice to hear a bit of calm, factual response rather than the fear mongering we keep seeing from certain sections of the press and the unusual suspects on here,

I’m honestly so glad things are starting to go back to normal it feels like this has been going on forever now.

@Beatinghearts - we are going to have to live with this virus and its mutations for a long long time. Perhaps forever. The B1.167 variant is spreading through the UK at the moment. If we don't follow advice we could, sadly, be starting all over again.

And there it is: another "sadly "

So Sharon Peacock is talking out of her arse is she? God the arrogance of some posters on here!!!!

Ooooh we have a ‘sadly’.

Any advances on that? What about an ‘I’m afraid’?

C’mon now gloomers, don’t let me down.

[quote Skinnytailedsquirrel]@Beatinghearts - we are going to have to live with this virus and its mutations for a long long time. Perhaps forever. The B1.167 variant is spreading through the UK at the moment. If we don't follow advice we could, sadly, be starting all over again.[/quote]
Why? What evidence do you have that this latest scariant evades the vaccines? It hasn't even been officially declared a variant of concern, has it?