Let's face it, they're letting it rip.

[ZednotZee]

Aren't they?

The vaccines aren't seemingly preventing transmission.

We are opening up on the 19th.

This is being done presumably as the public appetite for further lockdowns will be nil come October/November so best to get it over with now and have heard immunity come the autumn.

They won't say it but its becoming very clear that the immunocompromised need to continue to shield til the rest of us have contracted and got over the infection.

[quote QwertyGirly]@RedToothBrush not true. Some hospitals, especially in Scotland, are at or near full capacity. All non-urgent elective surgery have been cancelled and Outpatient activity - with the exception of cancer, urgent and some other activities - has also been cancelled in quite a few hospitals now.

And with cases doubling every 9 days, we're not that far off having loads more hospitals having to take similar measures.[/quote]
Do you have a link for this?

Qwerty I have heard of one hospital in the Highland that is cancelling non urgent procedures.

This is primarily due to Self Isolation and Planned Annual Leave (Scottish schools are shut).

This will happen in England I'm sure.

Also it should be noted Scotland is farther behind with its vaccination campaign.

They have very high uptake in older groups which is very good news, but many over 40s are probably not double jabbed or only just double jabbed.

And then through in natural immunity too!

I think its really important to understand the reasons for things before making statements........

Another comment from me on long CoVid.

Chris Whitty yesterday said rates of long Covid likely to increase significantly particularly in the younger ages where the vaccination rates are currently much lower. He said to the Local Government Association:

“Since there’s a lot of Covid at the moment and the rates are going up I regret to say I think we will get a significant amount more long Covid, particularly in the younger ages where the vaccination rates are currently much lower.

Fundamentally the two ways to prevent long Covid in my view are to keep Covid rates right down and make sure everyone is vaccinated so they get very mild disease and I think we really just need to push hell for leather for those two. (I have bolded this).

The deaths from Covid I think are mercifully going to be much lower in this wave compared to the previous ones as a proportion of cases but long Covid remains, I think, a worry.

We don’t know how big an issue it’s going to be but I think we should assume it’s not going to be trivial.”

@Zotter

Another comment from me on long CoVid.

Chris Whitty yesterday said rates of long Covid likely to increase significantly particularly in the younger ages where the vaccination rates are currently much lower. He said to the Local Government Association:

“Since there’s a lot of Covid at the moment and the rates are going up I regret to say I think we will get a significant amount more long Covid, particularly in the younger ages where the vaccination rates are currently much lower.

Fundamentally the two ways to prevent long Covid in my view are to keep Covid rates right down and make sure everyone is vaccinated so they get very mild disease and I think we really just need to push hell for leather for those two. (I have bolded this).

The deaths from Covid I think are mercifully going to be much lower in this wave compared to the previous ones as a proportion of cases but long Covid remains, I think, a worry.

We don’t know how big an issue it’s going to be but I think we should assume it’s not going to be trivial.”

Mental health shouldn’t be ignored either though

I understand that giving the phenomenon it’s own name gives it a legitimacy when we’re talking about long covid but I do wonder if categorising it has enabled people to brush over it in a way they probably would struggle to do if we talked about long term damage as a result of covid.

I just feel as if the physical damage covid is capable of leaving isn’t taken seriously at all and I can’t help but wonder why.

@QwertyGirly certainly not true in my health board less than 5 in with covid at the moment and that’s been the case for well over a month now even with delta, they are more overwhelmed trying to get caught up with other stuff now

@TableFlowerss the doubling time was mentioned during the press conference on Monday. Link: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000y1ls/bbc-news-special-coronavirus-update-05072021 Check at minutes 23 of the clip. Explained by Patrick Vallance.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57735232

www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-news-uk-cases-could-hit-100000-a-day-says-health-minister/

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-value-and-growth-rate#:~:text=The%20R%20number%20range%20for,as%20of%205%20June%202020.&text=The%20R%20number%20range%20for,as%20of%2029%20May%202020.&text=The%20R%20number%20range%20for,as%20of%2022%20May%202020.

@Cornettoninja

I understand that giving the phenomenon it’s own name gives it a legitimacy when we’re talking about long covid but I do wonder if categorising it has enabled people to brush over it in a way they probably would struggle to do if we talked about long term damage as a result of covid.

I just feel as if the physical damage covid is capable of leaving isn’t taken seriously at all and I can’t help but wonder why.

See I couldn’t disagree more. It’s always been about the physical implications of covid.

It’s the mental health implications of it all that have been superseded and not given the focus they deserve

@AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii you should know by now that some regions are more affected than others.

@Wakeupin2022

Qwerty I have heard of one hospital in the Highland that is cancelling non urgent procedures.

This is primarily due to Self Isolation and Planned Annual Leave (Scottish schools are shut).

This will happen in England I'm sure.

Thats not hospitals filling up though is it? Its issues related to staff shortages across the board rather than purely covid hospitalisations spiking massively.

My local hospital had over 200 covid patients consistently over winter. Its currently got less than a dozen.

I'm in an area with an extra 'advisory' notice on it as its regarded as a hotspot.

[quote QwertyGirly]@TableFlowerss the doubling time was mentioned during the press conference on Monday. Link: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000y1ls/bbc-news-special-coronavirus-update-05072021 Check at minutes 23 of the clip. Explained by Patrick Vallance.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57735232

www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-news-uk-cases-could-hit-100000-a-day-says-health-minister/

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-value-and-growth-rate#:~:text=The%20R%20number%20range%20for,as%20of%205%20June%202020.&text=The%20R%20number%20range%20for,as%20of%2029%20May%202020.&text=The%20R%20number%20range%20for,as%20of%2022%20May%202020.[/quote]
But the Scottish hospital is due to staffing issues. Probably holidays booked, some with covid so if there aren’t bright staff they will be close to capacity faster.

O

I mean if they’re aren’t fully staffed

@Lostinacloud

If actual science had been allowed into the public domain during all this, many more people might actually be pleased about the end of restrictions!

Natural immunity acquired by large portions of the population will actually help protect against variants! Natural infection allows for multiple barriers to develop against multiple parts of the sars-cov2 virus, not just the recognition of the spike protein focused on by the vaccines. Viruses will always mutate no matter what any human does but in allowing milder versions to spread amongst otherwise healthy populations while the vulnerable have already been protected by vaccine will ensure that wide scale immunity to variants continues. There are actually some scientists that advocate against vaccinating into the middle of a pandemic for fear of creating vaccine resistant strains.

However, once again we must only listen to the doomsday sage scientists who make predictions that are still yet to come to fruition. And any alternative scientific view is quickly labelled as conspiracy.

I don’t know what is going on in the msm at the moment but the tone is worrying. It looks very much like they are gearing up to reverse the decision by scaring the public once again about truly opening up and then another lockdown will be more readily accepted.

Pisses me off so much that so many people are being so manipulated.

Do you mean natural infection is better at keeping variants lower than vaccine?

I mean I think you are saying this but I hadn’t heard it before. Interesting

trialsitenews.com/asymptomatic-covid-spread-used-to-shut-down-the-economy-and-close-schools-was-false/

@MarshaBradyo - I’m sure posters will be along soon to discredit the author of this long but extremely interesting article about covid and natural immunity but from what I understood from this and some other studies, natural immunity can actually handle multiple arms of attack from the coronavirus whereas the vaccine focuses on the spike protein. The vaccine should still be effective as so far all variants appear to have a similar spike protein so that can be recognised but if it mutates this part of its arsenal then there is question about how far the vaccines would provide immunity.

@RedToothBrush I agree with you.
I really hate the emotive language such as "letting it rip" or "thrown under a bus"

Trouble is, the media have had a hand in frightening people half to death, reporting figures in an ambiguous way etc

The current hospitalisations are around 400 per day, when back at the peak in January it was 4000 per day.
We are currently running at just under 50% of the daily cases at the same peak time, so the vaccine is clearly doing its job, otherwise we'd have 2000+ admissions each day.

I just think there are some people who want to be locked down forever. I can't see why there would be another lockdown if the vaccine is working 🤷🏻‍♀️

Children aren't being thrown under a bus because they aren't affected badly by Covid. There are plenty of other viruses that are much more dangerous to young children (flu, RSV) and my kids will NOT be getting the covid vaccine.

It's time to learn to live with Covid now, because it's certainly not going anywhere.

The footie is an experiment 75% occupancy for fans, the government are going for broke this summer

www.biznews.com/health/2021/06/28/covid-19-vaccine-immunity?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&amp&__twitter_impression=true
This is another article about natural immunity but I anticipate that this will quickly be discredited because it is written by a member of the Panda group in South Africa who are working with many other groups globally to try and present a more balanced science than that propagated by mainstream media on behalf of governments and pharmaceutical companies.

Thanks for links Lost I’m keeping open mind will have a read

@curlyLJ as opposed to the emotive language of Boris Johnson's 'freedom day'?

I'm still confused as to why there is shielding going on. The CEV's were told they could stop shielding a few weeks ago but they just have to be cautious.

My DH was one of the CEV's due to his compromised immune system medications, and I very nearly lost him when he got Covid last year so he is just being cautious and not shielding. Unlike me who hasn't had to shield and has had Covid 3 times.

I'm still confused as to why there is shielding going on. The CEV's were told they could stop shielding a few weeks ago but they just have to be cautious

There are levels of caution and risk though aren’t there?

Low levels of infection make it a lot easier to practice caution than high levels of infection. If any of the predictions come to fruition (particularly 100k cases per day) then a cautious response is very different to when levels of infection were 5k per day.

@Cornettoninja

I'm still confused as to why there is shielding going on. The CEV's were told they could stop shielding a few weeks ago but they just have to be cautious

There are levels of caution and risk though aren’t there?

Low levels of infection make it a lot easier to practice caution than high levels of infection. If any of the predictions come to fruition (particularly 100k cases per day) then a cautious response is very different to when levels of infection were 5k per day.

Oh cripes he won't like it if he has to shield again if they decide the vulnerable have to shield, rather than lockdown or reinstating some restrictions

he won't like it if he has to shield again if they decide the vulnerable have to shield, rather than lockdown or reinstating some restrictions

Even if it comes to that it is simply advice to shield and not an obligation. It's not something I'll be doing again.