Sunak could accept 4 week delay to ending restrictions

[SonnetForSpring]

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/08/sunak-could-accept-four-week-delay-to-ending-covid-restrictions-in-england?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Warming us up to a 4 week delay?

Case numbers do matter as the more cases there are, the higher chance if a variant emerging within the partially vaccinated population with vaccine escape characteristics.

Also, hospitalizations are beginning to rise. There is a lag. Another week or 2 and it will be clearer.

I know a lot of people think Long Covid isn't a big deal, but I spoke to someone in their 40s who had Covid in Dec & is still signed off from work, previously fit as a fiddle.Hospitalisations and deaths are of course what we most want to avoid but they are not the only outcome from people contracting Covid.

Most people I know got over it within a week or two - I wonder what the stats are on people with Long Covid to the extent that they can't work?

I can see the current restrictions continuing for a long while, in order to give education, health and social interaction the ability to continue. It’s not ideal but another lockdown would be almost unbearable.

Yes long covid is an issue too as well as school disruption.

Agree. We have to do whatever we can to avoid another full lockdown.

@MrsNutNutsmarriedaphilanderer

When is the next podium show on? We need to hear directly from Whitty and Vallance - as that really shows the direction the wind is blowing (even if Johnson doesn't want to listen yet again )?

I have the uncomfortable feeling that their lack of visibility means they are worried andthe government is not listening...

groundhog day......................

It's being reported that CW and PV gave a briefing to ministers earlier this week:

www.theweek.co.uk/news/politics/953059/will-england-end-all-coronavirus-restrictions-21-june

Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance yesterday gave a briefing on the latest infection numbers that was described by ministers as “fairly grim”, The Times reports, prompting one minister to say they expected a delay of “between two weeks and a month”.

BJ is, however, being joined by Michael Gove in the 'la la la, I'm not listening' corner with MG being reported today in The Times as being willing to put money on restrictions ending this month.

We shall see next Monday, I believe.

Sunak presumably wanting to get his defence in early - that he was in favour of protecting health.

@SonnetForSpring

Agree. We have to do whatever we can to avoid another full lockdown.

Exactly this. Surely a short delay is better than further full lockdowns. 21 June was never set in stone it was always subject to key points.

Whatever it takes to stop full lock downs again in the winter.

And Disruption to children who incidentally are still very much restricted in schools - mine anyway. Largely so adults can continue their lives as normal

Johnson's fault for not blocking the borders, and hes still doing it - ref the Portugal rush.

If we give a fuck about the planet, some ' industries' have to go - wedding tat, mass travel etc are among them.

The thing that I just don't understand is how so many people were allowed to travel to India at a time when travel was only allowed for exceptional purposes? Thousands of people apparently disregarded "guidance" or "rules" of whatever they were at the time, or lied, and went off to India to celebrate weddings etc etc. How the hell did they get away with it? All this when travel was effectively suspended.

So, sorry, I do blame the populace, as well as the government. It is clear that certain parts of the country do not follow the rules, and that the border control was not tight enough to stop unessential travel.

Well two examples of the Gov still allowing travel to and from India without proper quarantine in the name of business:

Indian delegates came here for the G7 summit here & subsequently tested positive www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56993129

Johnson's aid went there and didn't then work from home for a few days, nope straight back into Whitehall before testing positive a week after he'd returned:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9507877/Did-Boris-Johnsons-aide-spread-Covid-19-Whitehall-India-trip.html

Gove got pinged by Test and Trace last week after attending the (2 UK teams) champions league final in Portugal. Might end up creating his own new mutant strain, Govid.

They are hardly leading by example.

That's big of him.

Anyone would think he was Prime Minister.

Let's hope that doesn't happen!
He's clearly vying with George Osborne in the failed economic policy stakes.

Completely unable to grasp that wealth is health - hence why our economy is doing worse than all the places that took measures to contain Covid.

Then there's his piece de resistance. It cost the taxpayer at least half a billion in lost income. His inflate the house price bubble stamp duty holiday.

Oh - and despite telling us there's no money for social care, homelessness, welfare benefits, and the NHS, there's apparently billions going spare for MP cronies. He spends freely when it comes to granting contracts for PPE and track and trace...even if it's to a company with little experience, that fucks it up.

Oh yes. The country would be in safe hands with Rishi. Not.

Absolutely had enough now. And for everyone saying well life is pretty much normal now, let me tell you something. IT ISN’T. I work in nightclubs. I’m desperate to go back to work. I have friends who own pubs, profits massively down due to table service etc. I have many friends who are performers. They cannot get work as theatres not reopened properly yet. The dance class my children go to is breaking even ONLY because the woman who owns it hasn’t taken a wage for over a year. I’m due to start teaching my own dance classes soon but due to spacing restrictions I cannot do this until all restrictions are lifted.

As long as hospitalisation are not massively increasing, they should be lifting restrictions.

@Tealightsandd oh and even though there's a measly £50 per pupil to deal with gaps created by homeschooling / upheavel to education Rishi found the £££ to subsidise McDonalds through Eat out to Waste Taxpayers Money Help Out.

Looks to me as if this is a plan to keep open as we are until schools break up. Because even though they doesn't to say that mixing in schoools particularly secondaries is a major vector for spread between households, they know it is. And we have a nice transmissible new version which it seems you need the double jab for good control by vaccine.

Once the schools vector is no lager a factor, we can order en up for a largely restriction-free summer

@MrsNutNutsmarriedaphilanderer
It's reassuring to know he's got his priorities right...

@SonnetForSpring

Case numbers do matter as the more cases there are, the higher chance if a variant emerging within the partially vaccinated population with vaccine escape characteristics.

Also, hospitalizations are beginning to rise. There is a lag. Another week or 2 and it will be clearer.

Yes of course cases matter. Whitty warned us that vaccinating in the middle of pandemic would always be a dangerous strategy as the virus is put under evolutionary pressure to mutate and evade the vaccines. Because of this cases absolutely do matter.

[quote MercyBooth]@blameitonthecaffeine YY I wouldnt mind either for the same reason but its badly affecting the wedding/music industries.

Quite frankly @sleepwouldbenice what helps to cause non compliance in further lockdowns is comments minimizing the sacrifices we have already made. Why the fuck would/should people comply with yet another one when their efforts and sacrifices are treated like nothing and minimized and history is rewritten and people are gaslighted e,g, the "we are in this mess because no one complied over Christmas" bollocks. Rubbishing and minimizing the sacrifices ppl made in the past is what ensures non compliance in the future.
Look at Hancock and his "dont blow it now" bollocks Boris said the same. News reports saying that the reason so many ppl are in hospital is because they are breaking the rules. Its already been proved that whatever the public do and whatever the public sacrifice it will never be enough. Blame blame and more blame despite the fact you got 95% compliance. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me![/quote]
I could not agree more.

Personally as someone who understood the need for restrictions/lockdowns and complied with them completely (as did the vast, vast majority of people I know), the more I hear this 'we're in this mess because people didn't listen' style statements the more I think okay, screw it then. If there are any future lockdowns or restrictions I won't bother, because clearly they had no effect whatsoever and all of that suffering was pointless.

Sounds bitter but honestly, I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

@murbblurb

Johnson's fault for not blocking the borders, and hes still doing it - ref the Portugal rush.

If we give a fuck about the planet, some ' industries' have to go - wedding tat, mass travel etc are among them.

‘If we give a fuck about the planet, some ' industries' have to go - wedding tat, mass travel etc are among them.‘

This a million times over.

@SonnetForSpring

Case numbers do matter as the more cases there are, the higher chance if a variant emerging within the partially vaccinated population with vaccine escape characteristics.

Also, hospitalizations are beginning to rise. There is a lag. Another week or 2 and it will be clearer.

But hospitalisations aren’t really raising are they ? We heard about this all around the 15th of may, so nearly a month ago. If hospitalisations were raising we’d have seen it by now and the numbers are pretty much the same as a month ago , same with deaths.

Im up for delaying if need to for another few weeks the reopening but I also understand the frustration for those that haven’t been able to work or who want to have a 30+ wedding ... if we saw a big increase in hospital numbers then I could understand it more

@SonnetForSpring

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/08/sunak-could-accept-four-week-delay-to-ending-covid-restrictions-in-england?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Warming us up to a 4 week delay?

It's about time the treasury realised that restrictions protect the economy.

Because the alternative (Brazil-style uncontrolled covid) is far worse.)

The thing that I just don't understand is how so many people were allowed to travel to India at a time when travel was only allowed for exceptional purposes? Thousands of people apparently disregarded "guidance" or "rules" of whatever they were at the time, or lied, and went off to India to celebrate weddings etc etc. How the hell did they get away with it? All this when travel was effectively suspended.

I'm not really sure what you mean by travel being effectively suspended.?

TBH given changes in the last month or two we need a time machine to see the rules in force at the time but as I recall it (ready to be corrected) when India was on the Amber list earlier this year the relevant UK Gov site was stating travel to attend the wedding of a family member was allowed.

It's been on the cards for a while. Vaccination is slow and we're not far enough ahead with it yet. Full vaccination is only achieved 16 weeks from the date of the first jab, and we're not even half-way to that yet. Data is widely varying on the effectiveness of the vaccines against the Delta variant, there have been credible reports of people catching Covid for a second time with this variant after previously having had the Kent (Alpha?) variant.

But hospitalisations aren’t really raising are they ?
But it did in the hotspot areas like Bolton. It's not shown up in the national figures because the hotspots are so localised and the effect is masked by declining hospitalisations elsewhere. If you applied the impact seen in the hotspots nationally (i.e. allow the next wave to run unchecked) there would be a massive rise in hospitalisations. Look at the hotspot data to see what effect the new variant is having.

It would be worse to drop all restrictions and then end up having to go into lockdown again at the end of summer. Better an extra 2-4 weeks of the current minimal precautions with masks and social distancing.

From Sunak's point of view, Covid is doing a great job at masking the other massive (self-inflicted) economic problem the country is running in parallel. The UK economy couldn't run at 100% even if the opportunity was available to try and do so.