How to avoid another lockdown - video

[SonnetForSpring]

Please watch this if you would like to better understand the situation regarding 21st June and the delta variant.

@trappedsincesundaymorn

Our very big hospital has the grand total of 2...yes 2...covid cases none of which are in ICU and 7 new reported cases in the whole of the (small) city, none of which are children. Not so much a wave, more a very small ripple.

Yes, same here. None in ICU and I'm in West Yorkshire.

There are 6 in our main hospital...a massive increase in non Covid emergency admissions though (I was admitted last week and was lucky to get a bed after a 15 hour wait).

@DumplingsAndStew

Why is factual often dismissed as "spreading fear" on these forums?

Some people like to be in possession of the facts. Those who don't, can continue sticking their fingers in their ears and singing "Lalala" or not watch/listen to the factual information given.

When it conflicts with people's beliefs, the only insult they've got left to throw is "fearmongering!" and heck - it worked for Brexit didn't it!

@trappedsincesundaymorn

Our very big hospital has the grand total of 2...yes 2...covid cases none of which are in ICU and 7 new reported cases in the whole of the (small) city, none of which are children. Not so much a wave, more a very small ripple.

And at the end of Febrary last year, there were only a couple of people in hospital with covid, so clearly this whole epidemic cannot have happened and we all just imagined it.

You may as well ask, 'why is anything that sounds fearmongering considered 'factual'?'

In reality, that video is a mix of rumour (anecdotal evidence that delta is worse in children), totally reasonable pointing out of things that look increasingly bad and warrant some serious alarm bells (continued growth of delta), entirely sensible recommendations to improve things that are desperately overdue (better support for self-isolation), recommendations that sound really good but in practice when you look at the specifics of what Independent SAGE actually suggest doing about them are very hard for eg schools to actually implement (ventilation), 'recommendations' of things the government is very obviously already doing ('consider boosters', seriously?)...

...but no no no, we can't have nuance! You're either the goodies or the baddies and that's IT. And if you say 'look I think that starting off with 'anecdotal evidence' of delta being worse among children is counter-productive at getting your message across regarding the really worrying rise of delta right now', that just means you're one of the baddies. Clearly.

1 in 12 cases lead to Long Covid, @englishmaninnewyork.

Very scary if we go through with Johnson's plan of letting Delta rip through schools.

But what's even the diagnostic criteria for Long Covid? Symptoms 5 weeks after diagnosis? Assuming that it is essentially Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome, having lingering symptoms wouldn't qualify for a diagnosis in the ordinary way.

I know a lot of people who have had Covid and I don't know anyone who has had proper long-term post-viral-type Long Covid. I know there are cases and it sounds awful. But there's no way it is 1 in 12.

I don’t know how anyone can confidently say what proportion of people develop long term complications of covid, especially given that we are told that a huge proportion of people have covid without symptoms, so we don’t know exactly how many have had it in the first place. So we have no clear picture of the true proportion of people with long term problems, certainly not enough to be confident about stating 1 in 12.

Obviously have to add the disclaimer that I am not dismissing long covid, I know it exists, and I have a brother with a long term condition that was triggered by a virus he contracted a couple of decades ago, and that condition itself makes him vulnerable to covid, so I’m certainly not dismissive of long term complications of any virus. Because as a PP said, nuance was left behind a long time ago.

@NannyAndJohn

1 in 12 cases lead to Long Covid, *@englishmaninnewyork*.

Very scary if we go through with Johnson's plan of letting Delta rip through schools.

Among children? Erm, no. You are making this up as you go along. If you want to believe this madcap stuff fine. But why try scare others?

The figure was stated very clearly in the video.

Though I doubt you watched it.

@NannyAndJohn how many cases of long covid have we seen in children in the UK since the start of this pandemic?

Read what I said. I said I doubt anyone can say with any certainty, as you did, that 1 in 12 cases lead to long covid. They don’t even state that in the video - it’s you overstating.

But I doubt you care.

But I doubt you care.

I'm more interested in her point about hundreds of thousands of UK school children being at risk of long covid. Utter, utter fantasy world stuff.

@Trewawgy

Read what I said. I said I doubt anyone can say with any certainty, as you did, that 1 in 12 cases lead to long covid. They don’t even state that in the video - it’s you overstating.

But I doubt you care.

But I doubt you care.

1:30 in the video.

To be fair, ALL children in educational settings are at risk from Long Covid since we don't know who gets it and why, we know very little about Delta, and 17 months in, the government have failed to implement any policy that works to prevent children catching covid at school.

The measures in place in educational settings are so pathetically ineffective that covid spread in schools has almost single-handed kicked off the third wave.

With a bit of help from a Prime Minister who didn't want to offend Modi into demanding MOAR visa-free immigration in the India-U.K. trade deal, so he delayed putting India on the red list, and decided not to protect our country by asking the Indian trade delegation to quarantine when they visited the U.K..

Then dealt with the incipient third wave brewing in schools by hiding the facts from the public.

And the world. Who are very interested to know what's happening in Delta's second biggest breeding ground.

Do you genuinely believe 100,000s of school children are at risk of long covid like another poster said @PrincessNutNuts ?

@englishmaninnewyork

Do you genuinely believe 100,000s of school children are at risk of long covid like another poster said *@PrincessNutNuts* ?

Why would they not be at risk? The virus is circulating and children are yet to be vaccinated. It is not a definite but with the scientific knowledge available it is clearly a risk.

Not what I asked @mrshoho
I asked where hundreds of thousands of them are at risk of getting long covid?
And how many cases of long covid in school children so far?

I am with you especially as you have friends in Singapore it must be true....might keep my children with me today 🤔

Well if we are talking about everything opening back up come 21st June and there are 11 million odd children in the UK then yes there is a risk that they could go on to develop long covid. The virus is here and children are unvaccinated. Why do you think they are not at risk? I'm not saying this is a definite as we are just at the start yet again but we can't ignore the possibility.

My London borough although thankfully having low case numbers has been part of the surge testing and just before half term arranged pcr testing for all secondary age children. It has been offering all over 18s walk in vaccination appointments and secondary schools have kept the requirement to wear masks indoors. This I see as proactive and although not vaccinating children as yet, by limiting transmission in adults and keeping community cases lower, provides some protection to our children. We need to understand that we cannot just return to normal and it is our government who should be pressing this point and not just casually dropping it in when talking about so called freedom dates.

@englishmaninnewyork

I'm not sure what answer you are looking for. Anyone and everyone is at risk of developing Long Covid, as they've not identified particular risk factors. So yes, huge numbers of school children are at risk whilst the virus circulates freely within schools.

We need to brace ourselves and open now that we have more than 85% with antibodies and rising.

This modeler who has proved pretty correct over the long run speculates that the coming wave will take 7000 lives mostly in the over 80s and will become endemic amongst the young. If we don't then we just push the can down the road to autumn with potentially greater impacts.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-third-wave-its-here-but-it-shouldnt-delay-our-reopening

"But what my model shows is that even if the Indian variant is as infectious as people say — and we end up with millions more new infections — the NHS will not be overwhelmed. The vaccines have seen to that. Let’s not forget that the third wave will also be spreading immunity. Once it has passed (which looks set to happen by the end of August) we could be looking at 95 per cent immunity — a pretty good protection against any fourth wave. There may be little incentive to vaccinate school-age children.

My estimate of millions of new infections might look daunting. No one wants to think that millions of Britons will soon acquire the virus or that thousands more may die. My point is that Professor Whitty was right: a third wave of Covid is indeed meeting a wall of vaccinated people. These people can carry on with their lives.

On Monday, the Prime Minister could decide to take the final step out of lockdown on 21 June — and allow us all to mix as freely as we did before the pandemic started. Some are advising him to keep several restrictions after this date. Perhaps the one-metre social distancing advice, perhaps the work-from-home orders (ignored by the 60 per cent of Britons who are going to the office as per usual). But the model shows that the virus is growing exponentially already; the final step on the roadmap out of lockdown makes little difference.

We are already mixing about as liberally as we would otherwise do on a full reopening. Not out of carelessness but, perhaps, out of an acceptance of risk. Regardless of which course of action we take this month — stay as we are, fully reopen or delay until the end of August — we will have to get through an exit wave. But one which, thanks to the vaccine, no longer carries the danger that it once did."

Before it really is allowed to spread like wildfire through the young, it would be really great if they could sort vaccines for medically vulnerable children (including under 12s), who having spent most of the year shielding seem to now be just left in this limbo of unvaccinated but at school. It is depressingly familiar that disabled young people are getting the shitty end of the stick here.

@HazeyJaneII

Before it really is allowed to spread like wildfire through the young, it would be really great if they could sort vaccines for medically vulnerable children (including under 12s), who having spent most of the year shielding seem to now be just left in this limbo of unvaccinated but at school. It is depressingly familiar that disabled young people are getting the shitty end of the stick here.

The sickening reality is that the majority of society don't care. These people have "underlying conditions". They won't be tolerated as an obstacle to "opening up the economy" and "getting on with things". They are the unappealing truth that most people would love to forget about - pre-Covid, during Covid, and will continue to be after Covid

So true @HazeyJanell. I work in a special needs school where most of the students are classed as medically vulnerable with many CEV. None are vaccinated to date. The thought of this wave just being left to grow as per the above Spectator article is terrible.