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

Have to say I wish my parents drove rather than took the bus everywhere - elderly, fairly frail and DF hasn't had second jab due to bad reaction to first. He's not remotely afraid and wants masks gone. Completely agree with Andy Burnham over public transport not being a choice for people - especially elderly.

I think Whitty is right, and as sad as it is, there's not really much more we can do. The waiting lists for the NHS may cause more deaths than covid. It's a reality we are all going to have to live with. The nhs needs more investment than I think the government can give it. Sad all round.

@RedToothBrush

It was measured. Which i think is appropriate.

How would it look if hed been really excited whilst also simultaneously saying that lots of deaths are still baked in because there is a limit to how effective the vaccines are?

I thought it realistic. The thing thats out of step is the way the tabloid press have promoted it as 'freedom day' and wound the public up to have unrealistic expected which need to be talked down.

It was the right tone. Even if people didn't expect that tone.

Sensible post.

First of all no need to be sarky about my username and second calm down! - I’m pointing out why case numbers have risen as expected. There was an argument to vaccinate the younger generation to limit the numbers going up amongst the demographic most likely to mingle- ultimately I don’t agree with this but I was pointing out to another user why numbers going up isn’t a surprise !

But they’ll get natural immunity when they catch Covid. Since it does very little to them it makes no odds. Immunisation of the older groups first meant a greater spread of the population is safe.

Covid isn't going anywhere we have to live with it . Lockdown and restriction cause as may problem as it solves .

Of course it was sombre this isn't a great option but its a practical one

We just can't go on having restriction, they will come back if needed. The only way we can work out what we need to do is to see the impact of no restriction and go from there.

The problem is restriction affect everyone different . Pensioners or people on benefits have seen no change to there income have a different view to furloughed or redundant people .

Lets hope this is an end to the madness. All this mask wearing and social distancing is bound to have created EVEN more health obsessed anxious people
This
Vulnerable people are vulnerable to all sorts of things and we should be compassionate and help them manage to isolate if they want to, but the obsession with closing down society for this one thing is bonkers.
The poster whose don has to spend his summer ‘in their garden’ clearly has no concern for large families of children in high rise flats who spent a very hot early summer last year indoors -the most deprived families so not have gardens!
People’s mental health has suffered hugely snd you want to prolong it to keep your own child ‘safe’ -understandable but not reasonable.

I think we should be opening up without social distancing restrictions. But I think masks should stay inside. They are a mild annoyance, unless you are exempt which is fair enough.

I also don’t understand why CEV aren’t being vaccinated before all restrictions are lifted. I would be very worried if I had a CEV child I think I would be feeling very forgotten.

[quote Unsure33]@MrsJuliaGulia

Actually you are putting others at risk , not just controlling your own risk .and as airlines can now make their own rules you might be in for a shock .[/quote]
Airlines aren't strict at all in reality. For example, we travelled last August at a time when you were allowed to but masks were essential. However, lots of people weren't wearing masks at the airport for extended periods of time and on the plane you can take it off if you are eating or drinking so some people were just sipping their drinks very slowly.

I agree with Hamlet. It was measured. What did you expect him to say. We all want the restrictions lifted. If he'd have said no, you need to continue for 3 months, ie the equivalent of no Christmas dinner, there would've been uproar. He can't win.

We have to learn to live with it. The chances of a fit, healthy person dying have always been low. There will be more deaths in the less vulnerable population vicariously from untreated disease than from covid in the longer term.

If we don't reopen the economy there will be little to live for anyway because the country is economically up a creek and without a paddle.

Lockdown and SD was all about slowing the spread, avoiding the NHS becoming overwhelmed, avoiding people dying because they couldn't get treatment.

Scotland made the stupid decision to try to irradiate covid, have had longer and harsher covid restrictions than anywhere else.

Where has that got us, the highest covid rates in Europe and a population who are scunnered. People won't buy into more SD.

Boris has handled covid well trying to balance, covid, other illnesses, the economy and MH. Please don't forget MH. I fear for the suicide figures from both 2020 and 2021.

@Dramallama4

My heart is breaking for my son, CEV, 6 months away from turning 16, he can’t have the vaccine until then. We will be spending the summer holidays in the back garden, strangely it’s made somewhat easier that he has severe learning difficulties so won’t ask to go anywhere but still so very unfair. I feel him and thousands like him have been forgotten about and left behind.

Oh Sweetheart,

The tone was appropriate. Ultimately the lifting of restrictions won't change much day to day as far as I can see. Younger generations are already mixing in house parties etc. A lot of people have changed habits and shop online and WFH a lot more. The whole thing was about reducing load on (I won't say protecting because we all know that's BS from a Tory government) the NHS. With vaccines and more sophisticated treatments the rated have gone down to cope. There is no need to keep us restricted at this point and the fixation on masks as the answer is a very big red herring. We have to accept deaths, it's sad but if we want 0 covid deaths then we will also need to solve all the other 'avoidable' deaths too and I don't fancy locked in my house in case I get knocked over by a car on the way to the corner shop.

I think the problem is the Delta variant was a massive gamechanger but not in the way some people thought.

It's arrival I think meant that people thought we would be heading for another lockdown but I think it is a different reality we need to face with this. The measures needed to suppress this variant (as seen in Australia) are far more difficult in our densely population country. Even then I think there is a reality that it would be suppressing the wave rather than eradicate it - and locking down and the releasing would instead move the problem somewhere else.

And that is very much where Chris Whitty I think has been for awhile. The sombre tone is because there is no other way out now - we can no longer divert or go around we simply have to go through it. Teaslightandd you are right - facing it and dealing with it head on is the only way now to do so because it is like labour and birth it isnt going anywhere.

The data coming out of Israel as well with Pfizer - 63% efficacy is what we have seen. That is the figure about stopping infection. They agree with us that it is 93% at serious illness and death.

The US has been on this page for weeks (see its travel at the moment is highest its been for awhile) and the Delta variant is just starting there. I cant see them backing down either. Germany I think are starting to see the same.

The ONLY thing I think that is the Government going against advice is with masks. But as I said that is very political. But also probably based on the reasoning that trying to police this is too difficult. Instead I think they are allowing business to make there only rules (which they are able to do) and allow people to make a choice. I dont think that much will change, I think those that see that will wear them and those that wont have probably stopped anyway.

I'm still concerned about the NHS and worried for people on waiting lists. The plan was to use the summer to catch-up on everything delayed over the past 16 months and this will no longer be possible due to the now inevitable summer wave and increase in hospitalisations (even if not as bad a previous waves). Then we go into the autumn/winter with the usual problems associated with that. Delayed/non urgent cases become urgent, winter pressure plus Covid 4th wave simultaneously. I just hope they have a better plan than Whitty's 'the NHS will cope because it has to' like he said yesturday (paraphrasing). I think the NHS is pretty burnt out.

If you look at India's cases over the last 4 months, it appears the delta variant burns high but also burns out quickly.

They have not gotten anywhere near our vaccine rate and cases are falling rapidly.

Delta is infecting younger people because of the vaccines making it harder to infect the more vulnerable.

It has to infect younger people and work harder to do so, it it dies out.

Delta took 2 months to reach the peak in India. We're already a few weeks into rising cases.

So if you let it run now, in the summer, it will be burning itself out by the time winter hits.

People are outside more in summer which naturally reduces transmission rates. Couple that with reducing transmission due to vaccines and it may burn out faster because there is a rapidly decreasing pool of people without antibodies.

The flu vaccine will be a complete guess this year as flu rates have been so low in the last year due to covid.

The NHS has to get on with elective surgery and treatments. Or more people will die from preventable injuries/diseases.

It is now or never, and the economy can't stay in shutdown much longer.

The UK is leading the way in terms of life after vaccines; but India has already proven that cases won't just rise forever.

We can't do zero covid. It's not possible.

It also doesn't appear to have triggered a new mutation in India - or at least not one worth worrying about.

Vulnerable people are vulnerable to all sorts of things and we should be compassionate and help them manage to isolate if they want to, but the obsession with closing down society for this one thing is bonkers.
The poster whose don has to spend his summer ‘in their garden’ clearly has no concern for large families of children in high rise flats who spent a very hot early summer last year indoors -the most deprived families so not have gardens! People’s mental health has suffered hugely snd you want to prolong it to keep your own child ‘safe’ -understandable but not reasonable

Why should vulnerable people have to isolate? Are they not people with a need for human and social interactions just like everyone else? Does their mental health not suffer if they spend week after month alone? Would it really kill you to wear a mask on the bus or at the hairdressers so vulnerable people can lead a semblance of the life you do?

The mood was because it’s not over it’s that we have to learn to live with it . The deaths and hospital are not going up and that’s because of the vaccine.
Did people expect that the day all restrictions are lifted it was the day we had zero Covid , that won’t happen and it’s not necessary with the vaccine .
The day we have no Covid you may see Boris do a little dance but he’s probably not prime minister by then .

• re posts about living with covid, absolutely, but why not admit having to be fluid and react accordingly?

Why pretend it's no way back, irreversible?? Why not say we are in a position to un lock, let's do it, but if something happens like death shooting up then we will reassess!
Surely after this winter we will know so much more about the vaccine? So why not simply go steady and cautious? That'd all.

So when is the right time? Covid is here for the rest of our lives. How do we want this lives to be lived? What is a life?

The reality seems to be that COVID will out race us whatever we do. We get a semblance of control (though very difficult and restrictive lock downs) and a new variant becomes rampant in another part of the world and inevitably finds its way to our shores. It found its way to Australia that is barely letting anyone in.

I have been hugely compliant with lockdowns and to be honest, very fortunate in that I can work from home and don't have children. My heart breaks though for the children of this generation, from a social and mental health aspect life has to return to normal for them. For those whose businesses have been destroyed.

My heart also breaks for the vulnerable that can't have a vaccination and are literally contained, in fear of the future.

There is no right answer to this, whatever course of action is taken one group will suffer over another group. This is the sombre reality.

We are in for a turbulent couple of years. It is like a virulent tsunami, you can take precautions, get a life raft and move to higher ground but you can't stop its path.

He said that summer was coming and mentioned winter.
I think they’re testing the waters with this one. Deaths are currently stagnant even though cases are up. Most cases I’m hearing about are kids anc uni students. My boss currently has it. His daughter is at uni, my dd is home as a kid in her class has it.
I do think by winter they’ll be getting us back in masks. My db office is closed because one of his colleagues went in sick, she tested positive for Covid. I wish there was guidance on not going to work if you’re unwell.

@MercyBooth

Are ppl really going to keep going for repeat jabs if nothing seems to change? Uptake for the second dose is lower than the first. Over 43 million people have had a first dose of the vaccine. (over 81% of the adult population) and over 31 million have had a second. Broken promises and double standards tend to piss people off. I dont think uptake of the autumn booster will be high if they try another Christmas lockdown.

Surely uptake is lower because of the time between the two. I've had the first but not the second. I'll be having the second on Thursday, a few days after the eight weeks.

I think we're at a point where it's clear we can't eradicate the virus, the public are as educated as they can be about the risks and what helps and all adults have been offered at least one vaccination. There isn't much else to be gained by legal restrictions at this point. People do have to get back to a normal life aware of covid risks. Just as we are aware of flu risks etc. Looking at another thread the use of masks will be chosen by at least half the population for a while longer. I suspect I shall still hand sanitise and do our LFT and make a sensible judgement about masks, even though I dislike them. Without legal pressure we are able to use common sense again. We know the risks and are capable of risk assessment. I think it is good that legal compulsion is going so we can move forward but with awareness of covid in the environment. We will probably always have to do that now, just as we do with colds and flu.

@BooseysMom

*Are ppl really going to keep going for repeat jabs if nothing seems to change? Uptake for the second dose is lower than the first. Over 43 million people have had a first dose of the vaccine. (over 81% of the adult population) and over 31 million have had a second. Broken promises and double standards tend to piss people off. I dont think uptake of the autumn booster will be high if they try another Christmas lockdown.*

Bojo said said there will be boosters for the vulnerable but what will the rest of us have? Nothing is being said about vaccinating all age groups again. I guess it will be like the flu jab, if you want it and you're not in a vulnerable category, you will have to pay for it.

Right this chestnut about boosters for the under 50s

1. we have a limited capacity to administer vaccines because of staff and the amount of vaccine supply we have.
2. we need to plan a booster program now because of the scale of the logistics to do so. We need to book venues etc
3. there is no point in making a decision about under 50s at this point because it will be close to Christmas before we get through the priority groups.
4. we don't actually know if even the vulnerable groups need a booster due to the lack of data about how long vaccine doses last and antibodies remain. The decision for a booster program is precautionary to avoid the most vulnerable running out of immunity at the worst possible time in winter leaving them completely exposed. By the time the first boosters are given some people will be 9 months from their first two doses.
5. Those in the 40 - 50 age group will still only be between 3 and 6 months from their second jab in most cases so won't actually need a booster until at least after Christmas anyway
6. Other people who are younger and had jabs earlier almost all fall under 'eligible for flu vaccine' anyway. The exception is people who got jabs early by get 'spares'.
7. why make a decision about under 50s now when you can wait for additional data? If this shows immunity lasts longer for younger age groups there is no point exposing them to needless side effects.
8. Boosters for the under 50s have not been ruled out. The decision has merely been pushed back until later pending more information.

This is starting to do my head in how people can't comprehend the practical stuff on this one. No, under 50s have not been thrown under the bus. They are still trying to do the best for all age groups and things are still under review.