Tea yes it would be great not to have needed them. China could have contained
We can't control the actions of others - but we can our own. We chose to import the virus and then let it spread. We continue to do this. Any and all new strains. All the horse's cousins.
Didn’t happen and we need them. Luckily we had people dedicated to producing cheap and accessible ones
Cheap?? It's going to cost billions and billions to get the world vaccinated. (Billions less if Biden and Macron's push for temporary patent waiver succeeds but still billions). And you want to burden us with the cost every year forever. Any patent waiver would almost certainly be temporary only (and it still costs to manufacture).
missed it how long are you shutting U.K. borders? Decades? As long as it takes for dc to grow up.. what’s the plan
Decades? Eh? The whole point of containment is to end it. So it doesn't become endemic, i.e. last for decades or longer. It's our refusal to contain that has made it last this long. If we had all done the same as Aus, NZ, East Asia, and many African countries, it would have all been over a year ago. It's dragging on only because we're not containing.
The plan? Well clearly the government's plan is the shortsighted, don't think of tomorrow, let any and all new strains in and to spread, worry about Long Covid including the financial costs later, and stick to the false economy approach.
The sensible plan would be border control - essential travel only (import and export lorries, etc), real quarantine, get our money's worth after spending billions on track and trace - get it working properly, mask adherence including reintroducing in schools. Then get jabbing. We need 80-90% of the population (and then the world) fully vaccinated. Possibly that will need to include boosters too. Then that's it. The way out (without a future of forever outbreaks). But we won't because greed, incompetence, and idiocy seem to be winning over morals, common sense, and foresight.