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

There are many types of scientists. You wouldn’t hire a plumber to fix your roof just because he was a tradesman.

@SonnetForSpring

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

The vulnerable ones are.

@SonnetForSpring

Testing and isolating really is the main issue I think. No one wants to isolate as far as I can tell. Which is why they don't test, which is why they pretend covid is not a threat. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to live with the damage they are causing to people who are falling ill.

Those who don't get paid if they can't work can't afford to isolate, so many don't test. And who can blame them. There's not enough financial support for people in such situations - if it comes down to a choice between paying your rent/feeding your family or isolating, which would you choose?

Great post @Moondust001

@Moondust001

I think many of us who are concerned would just like the government to listen to the scientists and take early action.

Which scientists would you like them to listen to? Bearing in mind that the scientific advisor being jumped upon by many on this thread is one of the scientists the government are listening to! Every single government in the world is listening to scientists. There is a problem with that. For every 100 scientists, there are 105 opinions! There is no such thing as an indisputable scientific fact. There are facts that have stood the test of time and much enquiry, and those are taken to be acknowledged facts until some scientists comes along and blows them out of the water. There is no way that something as new as this virus can fall into the category of "undisputed until shown otherwise" yet. Everything is up for questioning. And what is the absolute version of "early action" that "many of you" would like them to take? Is there only one possible early action? Of course not.

It also isn't just about science. Human beings live in complex groupings. Sociology, pyschology, economics... all these and many more things are part of the complicated equations that governments must try to balance. The world is not as black and white as some people would like it to be. The damage done to employment and industrial sectors also damages people's health, wellbeing and life expectancy. The damage done to mental health by fear and isolation also causes long term health problems, destroys wellbeing, and can adversely impact on life and quality of life.

There are no simple answers. There are no correct answers. Every single action has multiple layers of interactions, consequences and impacts. Every single one of them will have some good outcomes and some bad outcomes.

We are way past "listening to the experts" - there isn't any right answer to listen to. And no matter who the government(s) decide to bet on, at this stage there are too many people who cannot afford to comply with restrictions and disruptions any longer. That may not be the choice of everyone, and if they can afford to live isolated in their own bubbles, then that is a valid choice for them. But the point where it can be imposed on everyone is ending. The majority are moving away from tolerating it, and they can and will do their own assessments of the risks. There is another opinion that governments must listen to. That of the people. They ignore it at their peril.

There are some things you can't argue with...gravity is one of them and evolutionary biological mechanisms is another.

@SonnetForSpring

Testing and isolating really is the main issue I think. No one wants to isolate as far as I can tell. Which is why they don't test, which is why they pretend covid is not a threat. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to live with the damage they are causing to people who are falling ill.

I don’t condone it but many people can’t afford to isolate. It’s hardly surprising they take the risk rather than live on a pittance for a fortnight.

I agree, there should be support from government so people can isolate.

Medic here who teaches epidemiology amongst other medical subjects. My view is that Professor Dingwall is correct. We need to watch hospitalisation rates, critical care bed occupancy rates, death rates and case mortality rates - all of which remain low in all areas of the UK despite recent relaxation of lockdown and stop looking at case rates as closely. Yes, high case rates increase the likelihood of mutations happening but the risk of vaccine escape is still low . The point of lockdown was to reduce hospitalisation. The plan to target vaccinations to all over 18 in key hot spot areas like Bolton is the way to go.

Only if hospitalisation rates start to rise exponentially should we revise the roadmap. And current data shows that's unlikely

It's true that i'm sick of lockdown and my mental health is suffering but the roadmap continues to be sensible - we should go for it. We need to consider and balance the harms caused by lockdown too.

@scratchmeandyoullfindthenc

Medic here who teaches epidemiology amongst other medical subjects. My view is that Professor Dingwall is correct. We need to watch hospitalisation rates, critical care bed occupancy rates, death rates and case mortality rates - all of which remain low in all areas of the UK despite recent relaxation of lockdown and stop looking at case rates as closely. Yes, high case rates increase the likelihood of mutations happening but the risk of vaccine escape is still low . The point of lockdown was to reduce hospitalisation. The plan to target vaccinations to all over 18 in key hot spot areas like Bolton is the way to go.

Only if hospitalisation rates start to rise exponentially should we revise the roadmap. And current data shows that's unlikely

It's true that i'm sick of lockdown and my mental health is suffering but the roadmap continues to be sensible - we should go for it. We need to consider and balance the harms caused by lockdown too.

No one is arguing for a lockdown. They are arguing to keep to the cautious opening. Having people in your house is very high risk. A mutant of the indian variant under the partial selection pressure of the existing vaccines at this stage would set us back so much.

My concern about these government advisory groups is the government decide who is in it.
So they are going to choose experts with the same mindset as them.
This will clearly also extend to their views on the value of individual lives/health versus money/economy.
Also their views on risk versus safety.
The fact that someone is on a government advisory group (or employed as an advisor to the government) gives a pretty good idea of their political/economic views.

Currently policy on lockdown easing and variants basically comes down to human life versus money.

And I know someone will contradict me, saying it is about freedom.

But think about last summer. We thought we were getting more freedoms.

But these 'freedoms' were followed by us spending most of November-May in some kind of lockdown, mostly very strict lockdown.

So those weren't really freedoms, were they? Not if they were followed by even longer under strict lockdown.

The same could happen again this summer.

I would settle for fewer freedoms this summer if it meant I didn't have to spend most of autumn, winter and spring in lockdown. Certainly in retrospect I think most people would chosen that option this time last year. We are now in a position to learn from the mistakes of last year.

Vaccines? Who knows? No-one can say based on scientific evidence at this time that the vaccines will ensure that we won't spend next autumn, winter and spring in lockdown again due to new variants.

The so-called Spanish flu petered out (or at least petered down) because after the initial worldwide spread after Ww1, movement of people virtually stopped.

I simply can’t understand why the govt didn’t prevent anyone moving between here and India earlier. It’s just not fair to anyone who has ploughed through the last 15 months to let others put us back to square one. I have not seen my family abroad since October 2019 (and that is my only close family) so it makes me pretty mad to see some people hopping around the globe willy nilly.

@MarcelineMissouri that's very encouraging!

I've been waiting all week for news reports on who's getting it and how ill etc and there's been strangely nothing - just that numbers are going up.

Meanwhile real scientists say different.

Great post Moondust001!!

@SonnetForSpring But the partial selection pressure is not necessarily to be feared. Only if makes people so sick that they need hopspitalisation. What Prof Dingwall is arguing is that there isn't sufficient evidence to believe it would set us back and escape the vaccine. Having people in your house is indeed high risk for catching it, but it is now not for being hospitalised or dying. My colleagues and I were expecting to see much high rates of hospitalisation as we opened up, but, nationally, we haven't, which is fantastic. We need to monitor closely between now and the June deadline to see what happens.

I think it comes down to the level of risk we are prepared to live with and one's perception of the likelihood of a mutation that escapes the vaccine to the point that it hospitalizes and kills large numbers of people. My view is that the evidence we now have is that that is very unlikely to happen and I'm mindful of the risks of cautious opening too. You disgree and are entitled to do so. At what point would you be happy to proceed? What conditions need to be met for you to be satified we could proceed with the relaxation scheduled for Monday?

[quote JanuaryJonez]@MarcelineMissouri that's very encouraging!

I've been waiting all week for news reports on who's getting it and how ill etc and there's been strangely nothing - just that numbers are going up.

[/quote]
You can find the data for England here:

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/

Links to spreadsheets on bed occupancy data about halfway down. Very encouraging!

@Moondust001 I’d love them to listen to Independent Sage who have consistently advised that we need better contact tracing, better testing, better financial support for people who need to isolate, better surge testing while assessing if variants are of concern, better mitigation in schools and better boarder controls. Each time they have advocated for early and prompt action it’s been ignored and each time we’ve then ended up with a far bigger wave than was ever necessary, more deaths, more damage to mental health and more destruction to the economy. If the government focused on getting the above basics in place we’d have a much much better change of getting the semblance of normality that everyone on this thread wants. Letting it rip because the most vulnerable are vaccinated will still cause mayhem in schools, more deaths and more long covid. We need to sort out the basics alongside vaccinations.

Having people in your house is very high risk.

Not with current covid rates it's not.

To quote two posts on this thread:

"SAGE' own review found that indoor hospitality settings were not responsible for the spread of Covid (twitter.com/Sacha_Lord/status/1390597166335410176)"

"I really hope England doesn't relax the inside households rule on Monday. We know that's were the bulk of transmission occurs."

SAGE v. Mumsnetter. Pick your preferred expert.

Currently policy on lockdown easing and variants basically comes down to human life versus money.

Good lord, are people still spouting this?

I thought we’d all educated ourselves a little since April 2020.

Couldn't agree more. The hysteria and anxiety is ridiculous.

But think about last summer. We thought we were getting more freedoms.

But these 'freedoms' were followed by us spending most of November-May in some kind of lockdown, mostly very strict lockdown.

That was because of the Kent variant, not because of anything that happened during the summer, and which couldn't have been predicted.

We could have stayed locked down all through last summer and the variant could still have happened - and we'd have missed out on all the benefits to health and well being of being able to get out and about during the good weather.

Or the variant might not have happened, regardless of whether we opened up or not. We don't know.

@scratchmeandyoullfindthenc

Medic here who teaches epidemiology amongst other medical subjects. My view is that Professor Dingwall is correct. We need to watch hospitalisation rates, critical care bed occupancy rates, death rates and case mortality rates - all of which remain low in all areas of the UK despite recent relaxation of lockdown and stop looking at case rates as closely. Yes, high case rates increase the likelihood of mutations happening but the risk of vaccine escape is still low . The point of lockdown was to reduce hospitalisation. The plan to target vaccinations to all over 18 in key hot spot areas like Bolton is the way to go.

Only if hospitalisation rates start to rise exponentially should we revise the roadmap. And current data shows that's unlikely

It's true that i'm sick of lockdown and my mental health is suffering but the roadmap continues to be sensible - we should go for it. We need to consider and balance the harms caused by lockdown too.

Thank you for your reasoned, sensible and educated post. These types of posts are sadly lacking in this forum.

@Moondust001

I think many of us who are concerned would just like the government to listen to the scientists and take early action.

Which scientists would you like them to listen to? Bearing in mind that the scientific advisor being jumped upon by many on this thread is one of the scientists the government are listening to! Every single government in the world is listening to scientists. There is a problem with that. For every 100 scientists, there are 105 opinions! There is no such thing as an indisputable scientific fact. There are facts that have stood the test of time and much enquiry, and those are taken to be acknowledged facts until some scientists comes along and blows them out of the water. There is no way that something as new as this virus can fall into the category of "undisputed until shown otherwise" yet. Everything is up for questioning. And what is the absolute version of "early action" that "many of you" would like them to take? Is there only one possible early action? Of course not.

It also isn't just about science. Human beings live in complex groupings. Sociology, pyschology, economics... all these and many more things are part of the complicated equations that governments must try to balance. The world is not as black and white as some people would like it to be. The damage done to employment and industrial sectors also damages people's health, wellbeing and life expectancy. The damage done to mental health by fear and isolation also causes long term health problems, destroys wellbeing, and can adversely impact on life and quality of life.

There are no simple answers. There are no correct answers. Every single action has multiple layers of interactions, consequences and impacts. Every single one of them will have some good outcomes and some bad outcomes.

We are way past "listening to the experts" - there isn't any right answer to listen to. And no matter who the government(s) decide to bet on, at this stage there are too many people who cannot afford to comply with restrictions and disruptions any longer. That may not be the choice of everyone, and if they can afford to live isolated in their own bubbles, then that is a valid choice for them. But the point where it can be imposed on everyone is ending. The majority are moving away from tolerating it, and they can and will do their own assessments of the risks. There is another opinion that governments must listen to. That of the people. They ignore it at their peril.

Agree with both of your posts on this thread. This is my opinion exactly.