Stop panicking about variants says top expert

[CottageGardener]

People need to "stop panicking" every time a new coronavirus variant is identified in the UK, a leading scientist has said, amid concern about the growing number of cases of the Indian variant.

Professor Robert Dingwall, who is a member of the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, said that while the Indian variant may be capable of becoming the dominant variant in the UK, the risk of a surge in deaths or hospital admissions remains low.

Prof Dingwall, of the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent University, told the PA news agency: "This variant seems to be better managed by the vaccines than the South African variant so that vaccinated people have only a very low risk of infection that is likely to be mild."

Source: BBC news

Pubs and hospitality can reopen indoors from Monday. SAGE' own review found that indoor hospitality settings were not responsible for the spread of Covid (twitter.com/Sacha_Lord/status/1390597166335410176)
Many people on this thread will no doubt say we should listen to SAGE on all matters Covid.
So do they think we should listen to them on this? Or keep pubs etc shut anyway?

@savethegrannies

WHO have also said the vaccine works with this variant but it seems some people only listen to WHO when they have bad news. It also seems some people are rather revelling in all this (and I suppose they can afford to if their job/livelihood/house etc is not on the line).

When you say people are revelling in it, what exactly do you mean? I find this really offensive. It is possible to take COVID news seriously and worry about some aspects of it, without being actively ‘excited’ by it 🤦🏼‍♀️

Lots of people who have lost things during all this will also take it seriously. I genuinely haven’t seen anyone online or in rl who is revelling in anything that’s happening. I think we all know it’s utterly shit.

No one here is suggesting pubs must be kept shut. You're right everything cannot be kept shut forever but they must be covid secure and there must be more testing. Much more testing. More ventilation and still masks. It's about accepting this is how it is and always trying to reduce transmission. Not just thinking it will all over on Monday and don't worry about covid or following the guidelines. It's pathetic.

"I genuinely haven’t seen anyone online or in rl who is revelling in anything that’s happening. I think we all know it’s utterly shit."
I am not the only one to notice this trend TheSilence so I don't think it is my imagination.

I think it will really help if we all just focus on reducing transmission not trying deny its impact or calling people doomsayers etc etc.

@savethegrannies

"I genuinely haven’t seen anyone online or in rl who is revelling in anything that’s happening. I think we all know it’s utterly shit." I am not the only one to notice this trend TheSilence so I don't think it is my imagination.

Ok then I accept obviously that just because I haven’t experienced something that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. So can you be more detailed then and give some examples? What exactly do you mean by ‘revelling’?

@savethegrannies

"I genuinely haven’t seen anyone online or in rl who is revelling in anything that’s happening. I think we all know it’s utterly shit." I am not the only one to notice this trend TheSilence so I don't think it is my imagination.

It's a convenient narrative, not a trend.

@SonnetForSpring

I think it will really help if we all just focus on reducing transmission not trying deny its impact or calling people doomsayers etc etc.

I agree but I think as well that comes with accepting that this comes along with cases and clusters and that may mean some closures but also living life alongside it like we do with everything else.

So I think we need to focus on that part that it isn’t going anywhere and what measures can we live with

I think June 21st of removing everything has always been unrealistic testing is certainly going to be part of our lives for another year. But neither do I think that constantly looking at figures etc is helpful either

We need to find a middle ground and I think these threads often show that we aren’t there yet with the acceptance (on either side) that it is here to stay and what that means.

June 21st rests on four conditions being met.

It’s not unrealistic to think they will be. Then again they might not be.

It’s only assessed against data

Some may have said no chance to early lifting and things like schools opening yet we met conditions

It will be interesting to see how this thread ages over the next few weeks.

Well of course like anything, including posts saying opening three weeks before Easter was a bad move

Quartz, I agree. However, the media and gov are not helping us to achieve that place of acceptance. They are not educating people, they are manipulating people. Last summer when everything opened up, here was never a mention of covid. I do not want that to happen again. It is to everyone's detriment. However, humans love a binary, don't they. Even with regard to the vaccines, repeatedly people cannot understand it is a spectrum of immunity.

Last summer when everything opened up, there was never a mention of covid.

I really don't recognise this. We went away in the UK in early August and I remember hearing government ads on the car radio about Covid measures for public transport/restaurants/shops etc so often that DS started quoting them word for word. The news had lots about foreign travel with people having to return from Spain and France at very short notice. The papers were full of discussions about the return of schools. There were also plenty of visual reminders in our daily lives. Masks were introduced for indoor places in July, pre-booking was needed for most attractions, one way systems were in place and I remember queuing outside lots of smaller shops due to strict limits on numbers.

There's certainly a lot to question about some of the decisions made last summer, particularly around overseas travel and eat out to help out. And the level of caution exercised by people varied a lot. But suggesting we were living normal lives last summer without any thought of Covid is a major rewriting of the reality.

In the mainstream media... I can assure you, it was all about Brexit blah blah blah

And I can assure you there was also plenty about Covid too, because I read it!

There will be mutiple variants we are going around in circles ... people are getting no fucking financial help from the government loads slipped through the cracks and the scientists who get a nice wage want to lock us down

Enough is enough

It really wasn’t Sonnetforspring there certainly was a media storm about unions and schools going back!

I agree this isn’t binary at all but that is my point I think we have to accept that now and we can’t control or get rid of COVID. So the question or choice is between managing it and learning to deal with it and figuring where we are with that

@SonnetForSpring

This variant will rip through universities. No doubt about that. Students are not vaccinated.

Once again you are failing to see the issue. So what, unlikely to be a serious illness in 99% of young adults. Vaccines are protecting the old and vulnerable so we can get back to normal, because of vaccines an increase in cases doesn't mean increase in pressure on NHS now. Some people must have very dull lives as they are revelling in hysteria and lockdown mania.

@CottageGardener well said

I give up... stick with your beliefs. They will be adjusted at some point.

What can we expect for the future then, @SonnetForSpring ? Are you saying that normality is never?

I am feeling pretty sick at heart today. What set me off was dd buying a new pair of trousers. I read posts on here and it seems it’s pointless looking forward to anything. Shops and pubs will close, universities will not allow students back, and we will all just live a Wall-E existence, sitting at home waiting for poor schmucks to deliver to us. Perhaps there will be civil unrest, but perhaps we will just passively wait out our days for decades. My dcs will never go out again, never meet a partner, and certainly not have any fun.

Sonnetforspring what beliefs do you think they are that need to be adjusted.

Most of us I think are aware that this isnt going anywhere, that the Governments idea of June 21st has always been pie in the sky that somehow in June everything is going to go away, to a certain extent I think we all know that testing, masks, social distancing, picking what social contact you should and shouldnt have (shaking hands no, hugging grandparents yes), hybrid working are going to be around for awhile.

The idea as well that a cluster of cases could cause a shorter lockdown (as AUstralia has demonstrated works well - and I suspect that is what the Government are starting to see might need to be part of their approach) in a small area. Not tiers but simply a short sharp under 2 week lockdown to solve cases.

That is where I am - where are you?

I think we can all get back to a compromised to decent level of living if everyone works together, stops denying the facts. We need to be a cohesive and agile unit acting as one. Testing ourselves frequently, getting vaccinated, washing hands, wearing masks, ensuring the highest level ventilation possible when socialising. Basic things to reduce transmission
We have to work within the parameters the virus has given us! That's all I'm saying. The virus works towards a unified goal. We don't and that is our downfall. And u mean globally not just in the UK. The myopia surround this topic is astounding.

@MarshaBradyo I'm in Wales. Since March 2020, it has at no point been legal to have people in your house who are not in your extended household (at the moment this can be 2 households, the most it has been is 4.) It is utterly, utterly awful, and my husband's mental health has taken such a battering that I don't think he'll ever recover.

Oh, and AFAIK, our death rates are no better than England (but our NHS waiting list, per capita, is longer).