Did it seem a bit odd that the tone of today's announcement was so sombre?

[secretintrovert]

Bojo should have been doing his victory dance for freedom day! Instead the three of them looked as miserable as sin. There's trouble afoot methinks. This will be very very temporary

@SpnBaby1967

I honestly dont give a shit anymore about this whole debacle. Covid is here to stay, it's about time we just got on with living our lives.

We've had pandemics of one sort or another throughout our existence. No, not everyone will survive. I have my own health problems which put me in the "at risk" category for covid, yet when I caught it honestly I've had worse colds.

Wear a mask, dont wear a mask. I just dont care anymore. Stay home, dont stay home. I just dont care. I dont care if your 91 yo Nan might die, I dont care if your DH gets covid. I'm not heartless, but I also cant keep shouldering the responsibility to keep strangers safe from an invisible virus. I just cant do it anymore. I played my part, I HATED masks. I'm asthmatic and found them very difficult to wear, especially in hayfever season when I can barely breathe anyway. I havent been out partying and I wfh. But i NEED my freedom, i need to not have covid restrictions leading my daily life.

Call me selfish, i honestly could not care less....and I'm not alone in this either I'd wager.

Covid is here to stay, life is fleeting. We have a finite time on this earth. I dont want to spend it living in a state of fear that I might infect a stranger with an illness they will most likely live through with nowt worse than a cold.

Yep this is how I’m feeling sadly

And we also need to decide whether we are prepared to live like this indefinitely (ok I know some people are enjoying it, but for many people it is hellish) all for the sake of "saving the NHS". Because that's what the priority was all along. It wasn't saving lives - it was preventing the bad PR or people dying in corridors and in ambulances.

At what point we demand a better funded and better managed NHS instead one which just lurches from one crisis to the next?

I had really thought that this pandemic would result in much more mask acceptance in Britain

Never underestimate the stupidity and sense of exceptionalism of the British public.

Totally agree.

Masks do work - there’s plenty of data on that. It’s why most people catch Covid off their family, friends, colleagues etc and not off some random masked guy a metre away on the bus. Till now.

The changed demographics of the population (older at least if not other) makes me wonder if the NHS doesn’t need a bit more help. Looking at other country models (not US)

HesterShaw on matters of public health, I do think the government should lead. Anyway, you have presented a false binary - it isn't a choice between "ditch all restrictions" and "deciding literally everything for us". The govt could have maintained some mitigations (eg masks on public transport/in shops), especially given the woeful decline of daily vaccination rates during the last 4 weeks

Never underestimate the stupidity and sense of exceptionalism of the British public.

I’ll be glad when this type of view irrelevant. There will always be some that call others stupid but it will not longer matter. Some will wear masks other won’t. Some will remain angry etc but so what

@SimonedeBeauvoirscat

I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand it. I haven’t been this worried since early December last year. The sheer howling irresponsibility of it all is too much for me to comprehend.

One of my colleagues is very ill with the Delta variant. Double Pfizered weeks ago - plenty of time for the full protection to kick in. Another friend of a friend is also really unwell but was denied hospital admission because they didn’t want to get Delta in the wards; that’s what she was actually told!

It’s all very well to talk about personal choice and nobody being made to do what they don’t want to, but plenty of people will be forced back into work by employers who base their decisions on the government’s stance. I’m lucky that my employer won’t do that while cases are at nearly 30k a day and rising rapidly, and I’m lucky I can work from home, and I’m lucky I don’t have any particular need to travel abroad anytime soon. But that’s not the case for lots of people. Why on Earth will other countries let us in if we’ve got Delta rampaging unchecked though the population?

I had really thought that this pandemic would result in much more mask acceptance in Britain, that it would become pretty normal on public transport particularly during flu season, as it is in large parts of Asia (and has been for years). Instead we have set our faces against it! It’s madness and ignorance. We look so stupid to other parts of the world.

Ok, lets break this down.

We know that no vaccine is 100% effective. We knew variants might be more resistant to the vaccine. So far the vaccines are still holding up better than the hoped for level of immunity even with the variants.

The message about how the vaccine will not work for a certain percentage of people seems not to have filtered through to the public properly. It isn't a magic protective shield.

If someone has been refused admission to the wards for having delta then they either think they are so ill, they can't be treated and they are about to die (which doesn't sound the case in this situation) or they don't think they reach the threshold for admission even if they are really unwell. They can't just refuse admission if that puts their life at risk otherwise they risk legal action. They have to justify their decision.

As for letting in brits to other countries when we have Delta 'rampaging here'. It may be a threat posed particularly by admitting Brits, but the point here is that Delta will be 'rampaging everywhere' within weeks even if all Brits are barred entry. At this point keeping out Brits to stop Delta starts to become pointless and potentially simply economically damaging. So this is a time limited problem. Arguably we are all going to need to 'equalise' internationally if its accepted that variants can't be stopped once they hit a certain critical mass (which is the case with delta).

Finally on the subject of masks, I personally think they should have kept the restriction but I also think that will have much more mask acceptance and that a high percentage of people will continue to use them in certain situations. They have never been compulsory in large parts of Asia and a significant proportion of the public there don't wear them. So I don't think it makes us look stupid at all. People will continue to wear masks this autumn and winter in a way that we never had in this country.

@CryingAtTheDiscotheque

HesterShaw on matters of public health, I do think the government should lead. Anyway, you have presented a false binary - it isn't a choice between "ditch all restrictions" and "deciding literally everything for us". The govt could have maintained some mitigations (eg masks on public transport/in shops), especially given the woeful decline of daily vaccination rates during the last 4 weeks

To be fair I did say I knew my post contained contradictions.

The govt could have maintained some mitigations (eg masks on public transport/in shops), especially given the woeful decline of daily vaccination rates during the last 4 weeks

Is that a result of younger people choosing not to come forward, knowing that they are generally at far lower risk of illness? Genuine question.

It does seem as though many people will choose to keep wearing masks anyway.

At the moment on London public transport I estimate that between two thirds and three quarters of people wear masks (significantly lower among young people, I’ve observed).

If that % remains the same after July 19 I will be extremely relieved. We will have to see.

And just to reiterate the well-worn phrase, for those in the laissez faire camp: my mask protects you. Your mask protects me. That’s why it is my business whether you wear it or not. You selfish fuckers.

He isn't daft I bet he is predicting this uproar about masks so he can tell us in another 2 weeks they are here to stay on public transport and in shops as he has listened to the public and that's what we want.

Is that a result of younger people choosing not to come forward, knowing that they are generally at far lower risk of illness? Genuine question.

I wish I knew - there was some discussion on the stats thread which suggested there might be a natural/expected drop-off, but I strongly suspect supply issues (Pfizer especially) are likely to be a factor. It is very disappointing given that the 4 week extension was supposedly to allow for a real push on vax - the "race against the variant" etc etc.

Very somber because they know what is coming and that by autumn our restrictions will be harder than ever, so enjoy your freedom days whilst you can. The sensible ones will carry on wearing masks no doubt.

It is a mistake assuming we can simply ‘live with Covid’ without any intervention at all on our part other than vaccines. I hope everyone here recognises what living with Covid means? It’s not quite the retro 2019 level of freedom from face masks, social distancing and unrestricted global travel that Freedom day appears to be.

In short, we can’t live with it ‘untamed’ because the vaccines are not enough to do this, the government know this, so will we soon enough. Over the coming weeks I think we will understand this more clearly as we see the effects from the Delta surge. A surge we mustn’t forget that is happening with social distancing, face masks and capacity limits STILL in place to support the vaccination campaign.

Living with Covid in the UK means accepting we maintain a level of restriction to keep the numbers manageable, otherwise we will find ourselves back at square one sooner than we would like whether that’s from a large autumn winter wave or new vaccine resistant variants, both of which are not ruled out.

The CEV population has been thrown under a bus, so too the elderly ones for whom vaccine efficacy is not as robust as others. Their lives are now on hold more than ever.

And just to reiterate the well-worn phrase, for those in the laissez faire camp: my mask protects you. Your mask protects me. That’s why it is my business whether you wear it or not. You selfish fuckers.

It's easy to get angry and swear and insult. But is there any incontrovertible evidence to show that the type of masks people wear do actually provide the level of protection you seem confident of? That is, fabric over the mouth and nose, or loose disposable masks as opposed to the type which are mandated in Germany?

@SimonedeBeauvoirscat

At the moment on London public transport I estimate that between two thirds and three quarters of people wear masks (significantly lower among young people, I’ve observed).

If that % remains the same after July 19 I will be extremely relieved. We will have to see.

And just to reiterate the well-worn phrase, for those in the laissez faire camp: my mask protects you. Your mask protects me. That’s why it is my business whether you wear it or not. You selfish fuckers.

This started calm but ended quite angry ;

Did you feel the same way last year when they were optional? Or do you feel more angry now

@SimonedeBeauvoirscat
And just to reiterate the well-worn phrase, for those in the laissez faire camp: my mask protects you. Your mask protects me. That’s why it is my business whether you wear it or not. You selfish fuckers.

For God's sake!
I cant wear a mask so wont wear a mask because they give me panic attacks and I hyperventilate. Even someone wearing them sets me off. I have never been in any public space since last June. I stayed at home because I didnt want to be judged by people like you. My life is crap, but there you go, I will continue to stay in my house forever so you feel better. Best wishes from a 'selfish fucker'

44000 people die of sepsis each year in the uk, 5- 25000 from flu. People are now presenting with late diagnosed cancer and are palliative . Covid is one of many diseases that people will die of, and as long as it isnt overwhelming the health service or 10000s of unexpected deaths, then we need to return to normal livng

I wonder how much good masks are doing bearing in mind the rapidly rising infection rate.

A lot of people I see are touching their masks a lot, wearing the same one for weeks without changing them, sticking them in their pocket or bag etc. They can’t be effective when people don’t know or care how to use them properly surely.

@Flapjak

Agreed. Project fear has worked a treat on many people out there though who are literally viewing their worlds through a narrow, covid lens.

I feel sad for them. They’re wasting their lives hiding and “keeping safe”. They’re not living.

My uncles the same. Unvaccinated because he’s also terrified of the vaccine and going to “lay low for at least another winter or two”.

Tragic.

@nether

The CEV (that's 2.5 million people) have been left high and dry.

Agree with what Keir Starmer and the unions are saying

Have they do? Because the other 60 million people living in this country have given up a lot to protect them over the last 18 months.

@claralara42

He and his have killed more people than in some wars. They are criminals

What a ridiculous statement!!

There’s lots of evidence that the virus in rampant in the university aged population. A lot of my Dds friends had to cancel their vaccinations as they had the virus or were isolating.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

It's really not ok the way CEV and CV children are being overlooked the vaccine isn’t approved for use on children yet or do you want CEV children to be lab rats for this?!

I think that parents & young people should be able to choose

[quote sotiredofthislonelylife]@claralara42

He and his have killed more people than in some wars. They are criminals

What a ridiculous statement!![/quote]
hmm, certainly BJ's choices are likely to have resulted in a lot of unnecessary deaths.

[quote sotiredofthislonelylife]@claralara42

He and his have killed more people than in some wars. They are criminals

What a ridiculous statement!![/quote]
So you don't understand the statement? Tell me how I'm wrong