Indian variant - will the roadmap be delayed?

[nonono1]

I was feeling very hopeful about the future until reading that the Indian variant is now spreading fast in some communities.

In light of this, do you think we will stick to the roadmap as planned, or will restrictions be kept in place for longer? It seems like we're still going ahead with the big opening up on Monday.

Also, what about weddings? My SIL is getting married in August and we're really hoping it will still go ahead!

I suspect, like in most things they actually mean close the borders completely to prevent travel that I personally don't think people should be doing

The majority of the 'close the borders!' brigade haven't thought things through, to put it mildly.

I remember the poster! It was definitely before the Indian variant so this is brand new information!

@blacksax

I think we should close our borders completely while we get this Indian variant under control. We should have done it a year ago and we didn't. Look where it got us.

There's going to be other variants all over the world that will be brought back here the minute people start going on holiday again.

I'm sick and tired of this government fiddling while Rome burns.

I wish people here would stop talking about quarantining people returning from India when they are already being quarantined! Keep up.

As for closing all borders completely, we are not Australia and can never be.

@IcedPurple

I suspect, like in most things they actually mean close the borders completely to prevent travel that I personally don't think people should be doing

The majority of the 'close the borders!' brigade haven't thought things through, to put it mildly.

Wow closing the borders completely means that no food gets through.... wow that's a bit of a risk... let alone none of the super goodies people like to buy; I mean just where will the caviar, wine, Gogi berries, olives come from! We really don't grow enough soya products here to support us. Damn I will have to resort to drinking plain old cows milk like the riff raff

Oops sorry I have quoted the wrong poster.

@NoMLMbots It’s a bit sick that you find people suffering “amusing”. I don’t know why people like you bother using forums if you don’t want to hear people’s experiences. Carry on living in your bubble where everything is rosy 🙄. I would be more than happy to provide MNHQ with more detailed information that back up what I’ve said, but unfortunately I’m not going to do that on an open forum because it would be outing.

The reactions to the vaccine - all true.
The outbreak in my workplace - true.
The high level of PHE involvement - again, true.
The Indian VOC being identified - also true - the BBC have reported workplaces being involved in these outbreaks, mine is one of them, I’m not sure why that is so hard to believe.
People that have been double vaccinated that have been hospitalised - true.

I’m not anti-vax, I’ve been double vaccinated myself. I’ve never really believed that things have been massively covered up by the government however when some of said colleagues are having to give streams of very detailed information about their whereabouts to PHE going back a large number of weeks and asking them why the vaccine isn’t working and being told “there is no evidence of that” it does start to look like a cover up. I don’t know why, nor do I really care, but I do care about my friends who have been really sick.

This is all the fault of the government. If they delay opening up because they allowed flights with this variant on board to come into the country well after they knew about it they can seriously go fuck themselves. If they think people will be happy to continue with restrictions because of their massive huge fuck up they can think again. I'd love to hear Boris defend this clusterfuck.

I think the only thing that will delay us will be if hospital admissions go up too much. Even cases alone won’t be enough if it isn’t a burden on the NHS. Although that doesn’t account for long covid.

Another thousands of people have died after the vaccine

Well, actually it's probably true that thousands of people have died after the vaccine, but not because of the vaccine. A lot of people are getting vaccinated, many of them old, and everyone dies eventually. So saying there were thousands of post-vaccine deaths is true, but probably misleading.

-About 675 million people globally have had at least one vaccine dose
-In a normal year pre-COVID, if you took 675 million people representative of global demographics, about 4.4 million of them would die, so averaging 365,000 per month
-Vaccinated people probably skew older and sicker, so you would actually expect more than 365,000 deaths per month, globally, among people who have been vaccinated, even if the vaccine did nothing good or bad.

So since mass vaccination has been going on for a few months now, unless at least >1 million people globally have died some time after being vaccinated, you'd start to think that these vaccines might be a sort of miracle drug that not only protects you from COVID, but also prevents you from dying from anything else

That is almost certainly not the case. But it also means that even if someone can point to data showing thousands of deaths in vaccinated people, that does not in and of itself even remotely suggest that the vaccines are dangerous.

I thing all will open as planned on Monday.

No one has a crystal ball, but my view... This has to be the endgame - businesses, especially independents, cannot continue to weather it. There will be nothing left on the other side to reopen if the gov pushes things back yet again - hospitality, arts and culture, leisure and tourism, all have their backs against the wall. You cannot repeatedly close down public life and deprive people of social contact and formal education without there being very serious long term repercussions. Some of these are starting to hit home already. Plus I don't accept the gov has it within its gift to tell me when I can hug someone - that is between me and the person I am hugging.

@TruelyWonder

Currently I think it is unlikely the road map will change. Never say never though

Also

I think the main scientific things we have learnt in the pandemic are:

Don't read the guardian newspaper

Don't pay any attention to the worst case scenario models produced by imperial college

Trial data is nothing compared to real world data

Don't listen to independent SAGE or any of their experts 😁

Well the last point is rubbish. most of the predictions from independent Sage have been correct . They wanted the govt to take action in the autumn when it became clear that something was happening ( the UK variant as it later turned out) to drive numbers up so much. The govt were forced to do something in the end but they are even less likely to act early this time as it will ruin their ' haven't we done well with vaccines' narrative and they will keep hoping that everything will go back to normal until they can't hope any more. .

I too am hopeful that the vaccines will make a difference but I think it is inevitable that we will get another large peak of deaths before the ens of the year , hopefully lower than the second peak though

[quote LeSquigh]@NoMLMbots It’s a bit sick that you find people suffering “amusing”. I don’t know why people like you bother using forums if you don’t want to hear people’s experiences. Carry on living in your bubble where everything is rosy 🙄. I would be more than happy to provide MNHQ with more detailed information that back up what I’ve said, but unfortunately I’m not going to do that on an open forum because it would be outing.

The reactions to the vaccine - all true.
The outbreak in my workplace - true.
The high level of PHE involvement - again, true.
The Indian VOC being identified - also true - the BBC have reported workplaces being involved in these outbreaks, mine is one of them, I’m not sure why that is so hard to believe.
People that have been double vaccinated that have been hospitalised - true.

I’m not anti-vax, I’ve been double vaccinated myself. I’ve never really believed that things have been massively covered up by the government however when some of said colleagues are having to give streams of very detailed information about their whereabouts to PHE going back a large number of weeks and asking them why the vaccine isn’t working and being told “there is no evidence of that” it does start to look like a cover up. I don’t know why, nor do I really care, but I do care about my friends who have been really sick.[/quote]
I believe you . There are similar posts to those ridiculing your experience in Feb 2020 also accusing other posters of being ridiculous and scaremongering.

I really wish I didn't believe you but I do I'm afraid because what you report fits with what we know about the Indian variant so far . We don't know however that the vaccine doesn't help at all as it may have possibly been even worse if people at your work hadn't been vaccinated

There is a paragraph about Independent SAGE in the new Private Eye Under the headline Unsavoury SAGE.

@bumblingbovine49 Thank you, and you are correct, I was ridiculed in February until lots of other people started coming on and backing up what I had said. I happened to be one of the first reporting it because we were vaccinated early.

Hopefully you are correct in that the vaccine has had some protection and that cases could have been worse without it it’s just quite scary thinking that if the small numbers I have experienced where I am are replicated on a larger scale will mean a lot more hospital admissions. Fingers crossed we were just unlucky (other posters mocking me about how I have the unluckiest workplace - yes I really do seem to have at the moment and it’s been fucking shit for all concerned) and I don’t know how serious other outbreaks have been with the VOC but let’s hope for all our sakes that it is just bad luck and not a small taste of what’s to come.

My colleagues and I dedicate our own lives to saving others lives and protecting the public, (non medical in case anyone starts bleating on about that again 🙄) I am not in the business of making this shit up for what some other less informed posters clearly see as “scaremongering”.

When I had COVID myself last year it was very mild and I haven’t until recently known very many people directly who have had it and I was possibly a bit blase about it but obviously that has changed now with what is happening so close to home.

I read that the Indian variant is Bly spreading fast on certain communities. Is that right. So why isn't that being addressed, as the core issue?

@Arrowheart

This is all the fault of the government. If they delay opening up because they allowed flights with this variant on board to come into the country well after they knew about it they can seriously go fuck themselves. If they think people will be happy to continue with restrictions because of their massive huge fuck up they can think again. I'd love to hear Boris defend this clusterfuck.

Boris Johnson cancelled his visit to India and within hours the country was red listed. Clearly it should have been red listed earlier. Absolutely outrageous politicking.

"the highly transmissible variant after UK cases tripled in a week from 520 to more than 1,700."

"particularly prevalent in the north west of England, in areas including Bolton, Greater Manchester and Blackburn."

Then it needs to be dealt with THERE.

It's not like it's prevalent across the whole county.

I’m absolutely furious about this. I’m also not far from Bolton and sometimes work there. The Asian community there have been reluctant to get the vaccine which is why it’s spreading so easily, plus Bolton is deprived and there’s a lot of overcrowding in the areas affected. I just can’t understand why travel to India was allowed for so long. Truth is that people returning probably won’t have isolated on return either, many of the men in these communities in Bolton that I’ve worked with are taxi drivers so it will spread. If local lockdowns come in it will be awful as Bolton has had the highest of restrictions since July. The government have a lot to answer for yet again.

How is this the Governments fault?
The Bolton community who is responsible needs to grow held accountable, surely?

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/13/care-homes-in-bolton-advised-to-continue-lockdown-measures?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_b-gdnnews&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1620922446

The far right have targeted various ethnic groups with misinformation that the vaccines contain pig or cow or tracking microchips, or can alter your genes, or make you infertile...

After science and good governance, trustworthy information is possibly one of the biggest factors in the success of a covid strategy.

The more people you have pumping out misinformation, and amplifying misinformation the more covid takes its toll.

Unlike many more learned posters up thread I am far from yet another home armchair virologist or epidemiologist. However like all of us I have carefully followed and witnessed the recent pandemic outcomes and events over the past year both within the UK and overseas. I guesstimate that the likelihood of yet another UK wave or at least a further peak of R infection rates and hospitalisations may be inevitable. Hopefully it's impacts may be massively reduced owing to the ongoing rapid UK adult vaccination program including forthcoming boaster vaccines. I still believe UK destruction of lives and livelihoods with all the pain and suffering is partly due to political leadership reluctance and procrastination to be reactive (let alone ideally proactively ahead of the curve!) to allow the UK public full liberties with comparatively light touch emergency criminal laws and reliance on the British public to personally and collectively do the sensible thing! Many Brits "prefer" or are indifferent to risk potential infection and inadvertent super spreading and will not take proactive risk mitigation measures like hands, face, space and trace seriously. We allowed mass unchecked untested asymptomatic mutating super spreading to continue as to not be an economic inconvenience or mental drain. There is of course the infamous widespread British exceptionalism entitlement ideology of not being compliant with instructions even if they are based on science and implemented to save lives by protecting the NHS. We were forced into soft lockdowns only when the NHS was overwhelmed. Luckily the vaccines are evidently helpful to reduce fatalities and long post Covid syndrome. But can vaccines prevent another wave? Will fellow Brits cancel international summer holidays and move mixing of peoples and therefore potentially follow a similar pandemic pattern over the festive period despite "rules?" And will particular concentrated demographics as highlighted in numerous British inner cities continue to refuse vaccination based on religious or other cultural and non scientific beliefs to their own and wider society detriment?

@Oblomov21

"the highly transmissible variant after UK cases tripled in a week from 520 to more than 1,700."

"particularly prevalent in the north west of England, in areas including Bolton, Greater Manchester and Blackburn."

Then it needs to be dealt with THERE.

It's not like it's prevalent across the whole county.

We tried that. For months.

It's not how highly transmissible diseases that have already been found in 48 separate locations across the whole country really work though, is it?

@Oblomov21

"the highly transmissible variant after UK cases tripled in a week from 520 to more than 1,700."

"particularly prevalent in the north west of England, in areas including Bolton, Greater Manchester and Blackburn."

Then it needs to be dealt with THERE.

It's not like it's prevalent across the whole county.

Not just those areas though. It's also a problem in London and Glasgow.

Although people don't care about Londoners, remember many people from across the UK travel in and out of London every day....There's high likelihood it will spread out to the rest of the country...

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/indian-variant-officials-in-bolton-blackburn-sefton-london-and-glasgow-concerned-over-covid-strain/ar-BB1gHIkB

@ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia

Unlike many more learned posters up thread I am far from yet another home armchair virologist or epidemiologist. However like all of us I have carefully followed and witnessed the recent pandemic outcomes and events over the past year both within the UK and overseas. I guesstimate that the likelihood of yet another UK wave or at least a further peak of R infection rates and hospitalisations may be inevitable. Hopefully it's impacts may be massively reduced owing to the ongoing rapid UK adult vaccination program including forthcoming boaster vaccines. I still believe UK destruction of lives and livelihoods with all the pain and suffering is partly due to political leadership reluctance and procrastination to be reactive (let alone ideally proactively ahead of the curve!) to allow the UK public full liberties with comparatively light touch emergency criminal laws and reliance on the British public to personally and collectively do the sensible thing! Many Brits "prefer" or are indifferent to risk potential infection and inadvertent super spreading and will not take proactive risk mitigation measures like hands, face, space and trace seriously. We allowed mass unchecked untested asymptomatic mutating super spreading to continue as to not be an economic inconvenience or mental drain. There is of course the infamous widespread British exceptionalism entitlement ideology of not being compliant with instructions even if they are based on science and implemented to save lives by protecting the NHS. We were forced into soft lockdowns only when the NHS was overwhelmed. Luckily the vaccines are evidently helpful to reduce fatalities and long post Covid syndrome. But can vaccines prevent another wave? Will fellow Brits cancel international summer holidays and move mixing of peoples and therefore potentially follow a similar pandemic pattern over the festive period despite "rules?" And will particular concentrated demographics as highlighted in numerous British inner cities continue to refuse vaccination based on religious or other cultural and non scientific beliefs to their own and wider society detriment?

What do you mean by soft lockdown? Did you want more reduced?

Also I thought compliance was high here, I don’t think we are that different behaviourally.

I agree on higher vaccine reluctance though in for some demographics, not sure the rest of society can carry the reluctance though.

@LeSquigh
For what’s it worth, I believe you and I’m sorry things have been bad. I hope the vaccinations WILL work and we will continue to return to normal. I’m looking forward to the opening of entertainment and leisure facilities (especially sitting in pubs!) but would play it safe by keeping foreign holidays off the table this summer and keeping mask wearing (including in schools) until we have more data about the Indian variant and its effects. I guess it will be another interesting thread to look at in another couple of months.