@Brokenrecord3006
I read this morning that hospitalisations aren't increasing much and those in hospital aren't as ill. So actually rising infections isn't such a concern. It gave me some hope that re-opening might go ahead.
But then isn't it all pretty normal now isn't it? Pubs and restaurants are packed, we can hug, go in people's houses. Surely taking the next step doesn't make much difference. I do live in an area where we've had no cases for a few months though, so I'm happy to be corrected if I'm not realising the extent of it.
Infections were heading towards doubling on a weekly basis as the Indian variant spreads out from a handful of hotspots to become the dominant strain everywhere. If infection rates are doubling now, and all restrictions were dropped, then clearly they'd rocket. I'd expect to see a growth curve faster even than the first wave.
Hospitalisations are ALWAYS behind the increase in infections! We'll start to see the uptick just before Jun 21st.
While we know the protection against symptomatic infection is MUCH lower with the Delta variant, the expectation is that the protection against serious illness is less impacted- but even if that stayed as it was, the NHS would struggle according to models. If the protection is reduced then that just makes everything worse.
Basically when infection numbers are sky high, the small percentages of unvaccinated, vaccine failure and risk to younger people, all start to mount up. It'll take far more infected now to result in the same numbers in hospital, but it'll still happen.