Time to "let it rip"?

[Warhertisuff]

Firstly, let me say that I've been in broadly in favour of restrictions put in place since March 2020, but surely, once we get to 19 July, and we have widespread vaccination coverage (not to mention non-vaccine immunity), we should just go back to normal, completely, and treat Covid like the flu, as effectively that's what we've tamed to be akin to.

No more masks, no more isolation, no more testing and tracing....

Yes, they'll be a spike in cases, and many will get ill, but as long as hospitals aren't overwhelmed and people aren't dying in droves, so be it.

I appreciate that there are those who remain vulnerable even after being double-jabbed, but I'd have thought it would be far better for them to shield themselves for a short period as it rips through and burns out like past epidemics, rather than keeping it simmering and retaining a moderate level of risk over a much longer period as we neither do enough to suppress it completely, nor allow things to open up fully enough for it to rip through in a few weeks.

Then as and when variants do arrive (which they probably will) we'll have an even more comprehensive base level of population immunity.

Oh yes because burying our collective head in the sand and seeing how we go has worked so well previously...

@roguetomato

What about CV/CEV children, OP? They should just stay home and hide themselves while healthy people have life, or accept their fate?

Unless we never ever lift restrictions, Covid will need to be allowed to reach a point of stability, where there's enough vaccine and acquired immunity to suppress Covid infection to low levels.

My argument is that, given that the CEV will always be vulnerable to Covid, it's better to reach that point quickly come 19th July given that most of the population is at very low risk of serious disease, rather than string the whole process out as that helps no one, including CEV children.

@Oblomov21 immunosuppresant medicines can stop the vaccine working completely. Lots of people on those drugs will have been vaccinated in the hope they gain even a tiny bit of resistance.

@nothingcanhurtmewithmyeyesshut

Oh yes because burying our collective head in the sand and seeing how we go has worked so well previously...

I'm not burying my head in the sand. I've supported restrictions to this point as a proportionate, if extreme, response to the pandemic. Given where we are, the idea that never-ending restrictions should be the "new normal" doesn't help anyone, including the CEV!

CV and CEV people can be living with unvaccinated under 16s who go to school. None of those pupils are vaccinated so that's a high risk strategy for them.

which experts are promoting dropping all restrictions right now including T&T @Warhertisuff?

this is actually sounding a lot like a rehash of the GBD, and we all know how well that went

Its a high risk strategy for the vast majority of people, never mind just the CEV. Various stories of overrun hospitals atm without a huge amount of covid cases. Let covid rip through and throw some more covid cases on that fire and then we will see the affect that has on everyone again in relation to access to healthcare for non covid treatment.

The problem is that the NHS will still get overwhelmed. Even among the under-16s, a small (tiny) percentage will get ill enough to require hospital treatment. That tiny percentage of a huge number will be enough to knock out our health services again.

We have several outbreaks at schools locally. Yesterday, for the first time during the entire pandemic, our GP surgery was closed to all but urgent cases - even for online consultations.

Today 14:18 Warhertisuff

Morghulis
There are still many people who haven’t had one or both vaccinations, why not just wait a couple months until that’s happened…

Because those waiting are for their second doses on 19 July will largely be low risk...“

Our adult kids have done everything, and more, that’s been asked of them for 16 months. They won’t be fully vaccinated until late August. They both have asthma, theoretically they should be ok but why are they less worthy of caution and protection than the millions of elderly they gave up so much for - without complaint, incidentally.
If you’re healthy, is it really so hard to wear a mask indoors and keep a bit of distance from strangers for an extra month or so until they and millions like them are as protected as older people?

"CV and CEV people can be living with unvaccinated under 16s who go to school. None of those pupils are vaccinated so that's a high risk strategy for them."

High risk strategy?
Eh? It's obviously lower if they've (THe parent, the CV or CEV person) had both vaccines, which they should have by now.

It's lower risk now.

The worldometer projections for the UK look pretty bad even without 'letting it rip'. Back up to 500 deaths a day in October with a daily peak in cases of 130k surpassing the previous January peak.

@ollyollyoxenfree

which experts are promoting dropping all restrictions right now including T&T *@Warhertisuff*?

this is actually sounding a lot like a rehash of the GBD, and we all know how well that went

Fair enough re T&T, though once restrictions have lifted, I'm not sure how effective T&T is likely to be as numbers rise.

Does ‘learning to live with Covid’ as we are being primed for, involve T&T for cases? Or the opposite? Not even testing? Just accepting it’s one of the endemic illnesses that go round every year. Vulnerable will get a booster every year. Immunity in the community will build and last.

@Pigsnacksatthewinchester

Today 14:18 Warhertisuff

Morghulis
There are still many people who haven’t had one or both vaccinations, why not just wait a couple months until that’s happened…

Because those waiting are for their second doses on 19 July will largely be low risk...“

Our adult kids have done everything, and more, that’s been asked of them for 16 months. They won’t be fully vaccinated until late August. They both have asthma, theoretically they should be ok but why are they less worthy of caution and protection than the millions of elderly they gave up so much for - without complaint, incidentally.
If you’re healthy, is it really so hard to wear a mask indoors and keep a bit of distance from strangers for an extra month or so until they and millions like them are as protected as older people?

If they are only now being vaccinated then it follows they are at very low risk, despite their asthma. If their condition put them at an elevated risk, they would have been vaccinated before.

Covid risk literally increases exponentially with age (all other things being equal) for every 7 years of age. Therefore a 20 year old is 1,024 times less at risk than a 90 year old.

The worldometer projections for the UK look pretty bad even without 'letting it rip'. Back up to 500 deaths a day in October with a daily peak in cases of 130k surpassing the previous January peak.

If this is anywhere near the truth of what will happen - who will they be? And does that mean that the vaccines won't work?

@Delatron

Does ‘learning to live with Covid’ as we are being primed for, involve T&T for cases? Or the opposite? Not even testing? Just accepting it’s one of the endemic illnesses that go round every year. Vulnerable will get a booster every year. Immunity in the community will build and last.

It surely must be this... The country will need to be vigilant and we will need to continue to monitor the position closely for at least a few years, but unless the position deteriorates to the point that there will be 1,000s of daily deaths of nothing is done from some kind of killer variant, I wouldn't have expected there to be the need to test, trace and isolate as we do currently.

'Learning to live with covid' seems to mean 'go back to 2019 and forget it exists' to some people and to others it means 'life as normal as possible, society reopened but with some mitigations in place to allow us to live alongside covid until the vaccine takes over all the leg work'
The government haven't really laid out what 'learning to live with covid' actually looks like instead preferring to defer these decisions to later dates.

@Dustyboots

The worldometer projections for the UK look pretty bad even without 'letting it rip'. Back up to 500 deaths a day in October with a daily peak in cases of 130k surpassing the previous January peak.

If this is anywhere near the truth of what will happen - who will they be? And does that mean that the vaccines won't work?

I wonder how on Earth such a prediction could be made with any degree of accuracy whatsoever.

@jumpbounce

'Learning to live with covid' seems to mean 'go back to 2019 and forget it exists' to some people and to others it means 'life as normal as possible, society reopened but with some mitigations in place to allow us to live alongside covid until the vaccine takes over all the leg work' The government haven't really laid out what 'learning to live with covid' actually looks like instead preferring to defer these decisions to later dates.

What would these mitigations be? If they are simply things to make the nervous like things are being controlled, whilst actually doing little to contain the spread, I don't see there being much support.

If we are back to a daily death rate of 500 a
a day October that would imply the vaccines are useless. Have we got that information? That the vaccines don’t work at all?!

Or those models are very wrong. Hmmm

This shows vaccines do work, it also shows vaccines are not 100%. When cases are low this isn't an issue because its a percentage of a low number which is a low number but when cases are very high then a small percentage of a large number is still a large number and that's when the issues in terms of NHS capacity arise again.

People throw the term ‘social distancing’ around like it means nothing. That it has no impact.

Thousands of business would go bust if we have to carry on with social distancing rules. Which, when all the adult population are vaccinated would be ridiculous no?

What restrictions do people want to carry on once all the over 18s are vaccinated?

If vaccines have an impact on transmission and 89% of the population have antibodies why would cases get ‘very high’ again?

They will rise inevitably. But nowhere near rates seen previously.

We can’t carry on with never ending restrictions just because vaccines aren’t 100%. They are effective ENOUGH.

@Delatron

People throw the term ‘social distancing’ around like it means nothing. That it has no impact.

Thousands of business would go bust if we have to carry on with social distancing rules. Which, when all the adult population are vaccinated would be ridiculous no?

What restrictions do people want to carry on once all the over 18s are vaccinated?

Not sure it’ll be a case of wanting, more than likely a case of needing to keep capacity limits on certain sectors, keep wfh when possible, keep face masks. Otherwise our fall back to square 1 will be very fast.

It’s like a parallel universe on here where we haven’t got a multitude of effective vaccines and a very successful vaccinations program.

But yes we will be back to square one very soon I’m sure. With 500 deaths a day.

Back in the real world...