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.

Alternatives cannot be made for every single exceptional case, it's just not do-able.

With cases so high it would be hard to do much in schools for 4 to ten years other than slow it slightly.

The better path is that the classroom is full of immune children via either way

“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
Mahatma Gandhi

@Caramellatteplease

“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” Mahatma Gandhi

What does that convert to in terms of continued restrictions in your view?

@Horehound

Alternatives cannot be made for every single exceptional case, it's just not do-able.

No, but saying that everything is OK because you personally can make choices that keep you safer (and disregarding the many who cannot make such choices) is wrong.

Back at the start of the pandemic, there was an outcry about the high death toll amongst bus drivers, who could not lock down at home. That led to public pressure for better safety provision for those who worked out of the home during lockdowns - retail workers, NHS staff etc.

Now it feels as if those who CAN keep safe are unwilling to exert any pressure or influence to ensure that others who lack this opportunity are kept safer.

@Horehound

Alternatives cannot be made for every single exceptional case, it's just not do-able.

But it's loads of children, it's not just individual exceptional cases. It's asthmatic children, diabetic children, those with cystic fibrosis, those who have or have had cancer. Lots and lots and lots of children. Don't forget BAME are more vulnerable too.

It's not one or two, it's condemning lots of children to face almost certain infection with a disease that could seriously harm them (with no mitigation or attempt to reduce risk whatsoever even in the most basic ways) or remain uneducated.

What kind of society are we? We certainly aren't demonstrating the values espoused in most schools; honesty, integrity, empathy, inclusion.

This is a bit melodramatic! Do you say this about RSV? The flu? H1N1? Meningitis? Measles? Chicken pox? Scarlet fever? E coli? These infections kill hundreds of children ever year and have done for years and years. Those groups you mention are all more at risk of these too.

Life is a series of risks.

Some groups will always be more vulnerable to things than others.

What about road accidents? This kills more children. Or bigger population risks like Obesity? Drugs? Alcohol? Diabetes?

Covid is now a very small risk on the scale of things.

Society needs to and has to move on.

I think with the current strategy of constantly isolating children for 10 days at a time, over and over again, Covid is the least of their health problems.

We’ll look back and wonder what on earth we did to our children..

@chocolateorangeinhaler

It's survival of the fittest. That's how nature works, always has, always will. Hiding inside forever won't stop it.

I've always had a feeling that for a lot of people they go through life not realizing at some point we all die. This is the first time they have faced their mortality. Rather than take responsibility and enjoy what life they have got they want to hide away and hope it won't happen and make everyone else miserable.

I'm going out maskless and enjoying myself. Life is short. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.

🙌🙌 same although I’m not massless until 19th 🙄🥳

Maskless 😂

I've always had a feeling that for a lot of people they go through life not realizing at some point we all die. This is the first time they have faced their mortality. Rather than take responsibility and enjoy what life they have got they want to hide away and hope it won't happen and make everyone else miserable. I'm going out maskless and enjoying myself. Life is short. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
This is spades!

I mean ‘this IN spades!
Totally agree!

I've always had a feeling that for a lot of people they go through life not realizing at some point we all die. This is the first time they have faced their mortality. Rather than take responsibility and enjoy what life they have got they want to hide away and hope it won't happen and make everyone else miserable. I'm going out maskless and enjoying myself. Life is short. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow

When you get hit by that bus, do you want the paramedics to wear a mask? The doctors? Surgeons?

@Delatron

I think with the current strategy of constantly isolating children for 10 days at a time, over and over again, Covid is the least of their health problems.

We’ll look back and wonder what on earth we did to our children..

We will indeed. As will they.

@Delatron

The pattern is: cases rise. Lockdown. The minute you open up, cases shoot up (this isn’t a good thing). And repeat.

Now every country is different with different demographics etc. However, certain areas such as Florida, where they did away with most restrictions last year, had an initial surge then no lockdowns have actually fared ok. You’re going to have cases bubbling away but none of the peaks and troughs.

We suppressed alpha so much that delta become the dominant strain when we opened up? We suppressed original Covid (which was by far a better one to deal with!) then the alpha strain took off. I’m no expert but repeated lockdowns and opening up isn’t really working well. Other than relieving the pressure on the NHS. At some point you have to try something else.

Totally agree. I think there's going to be a point looking back where the scientists are going to admit that by introducing the extreme level of social distancing we did, we actually created the perfect conditions for each more transmissible varient. After if we make it almost impossible for the virus to transmit then we are actually speeding up the evolution process by making it so that only the most transmissible varients can survive. And I've been saying this since alpha first appeared, pretty sure I was shot down that this isn't the way viruses work, when in fact it's how evolution has always worked, survival of the fittest (as in most fit to the environment)

@echt

I've always had a feeling that for a lot of people they go through life not realizing at some point we all die. This is the first time they have faced their mortality. Rather than take responsibility and enjoy what life they have got they want to hide away and hope it won't happen and make everyone else miserable. I'm going out maskless and enjoying myself. Life is short. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow

When you get hit by that bus, do you want the paramedics to wear a mask? The doctors? Surgeons?

That has got to be the stupidest comment on masks I’ve ever read. Yeah, me not wearing a mask in Tesco is EXACTLY the same as a surgeon performing surgery not wearing one.

That’s an interesting point, that social distancing actually encourages the virus to mutate to become more transmissible ( not necessarily more deadly). That would make perfect sense from an evolutionary POV.
Maybe this idea will be like the lab leak theory, no one wants to talk about it, dismissed as conspiracy, then suddenly it is ok to say and scientists jump on the bandwagon and declare they always thought social distancing ( and maybe even mask wearing to some extent) actually encourages mutations.

@Whatever9999 I’ve said the same and been shot down on other threads too. I think each time we locked down we suppressed the dominant virus at the time (original Covid for example ) then when you open back up a more transmissible variant can take hold.

I think it was a huge mistake to stay locked down right through until July last year and push the second wave until autumn. (Kent variant then took off). Every time we have opened back up after lockdown cases have gone through the roof. There must have been a better strategy. I think maybe to have kept the schools open through Spring and summer last year.

I think after this is all over some interesting analysis on lockdowns will occur. I accept it as an emergency short term measure but not an ongoing pandemic response.

But look at Korea, Taiwan etc - they didn't lock down, they've just suppressed. It's not true that lockdown is the only thing that works. Many, many countries haven't after the first one (and my family in a US state had only the first lockdown - it's been suppressed with good mitigation - including in schools - since then).

Their economies are better and lives less disrupted. Good test and trace (including backwards contact tracing which I don't think we do here at all), mitigations like masks, distancing, ventilation. Lockdown of venues with outbreaks, yes, but normal life goes on otherwise with relatively inexpensive and not difficult mitigations. Far less disruption overall.

The main thing that encourages mutation is high levels of infection - every person infected is an opportunity for a mutation so if you have 100000 people infected you have 100000 more chances of mutation than if only 1 person is infected. So countries with low levels of infection are far less likely to have variants take off.

This is the reason why variants of concern have only arisen in countries that have let the virus get out of control: here, Brazil, India etc

@theemperorhasnoclothes, backwards contact tracing is really effective but you need low numbers. We missed that opportunity right at the beginning and possibly at the end of summer. Infections were just too widespread.

I do agree @theemperorhasnoclothes that other mitigations work better than constant lockdowns.

I think some US states are a good example of this but I’m not sure what mitigations Florida did for example instead of lockdown?

My issue is with the cycle of long lockdowns until an arbitrary date that means nothing then the minute we open cases soar and another variant takes hold.

And as far as people not realising they will die - maybe, but that's not true of me. I'd still rather not die of something avoidable like covid. If i could move to Australia or New Zealand tomorrow I would.

I had a good friend die of cancer last year (she was treated throughout the lockdowns for what it's worth): she knew she was going to die, without question, that year, but she still didn't want to die of covid, gasping for breath in a hospital far from her loved ones.

Fortunately she did manage to die the way she'd hoped she would, at home. The manner of death matters - covid is an awful way to go and severs you from those you would most want to be with at the end.

My friend had a lot of time to think about and plan for her death, and not only was she happier that her plans were not taken away from her, her DC ( still primary school age when it happened) also were better off. Though her death was tragic in any circumstances, there would have been huge trauma if she'd died of covid, and it would have had a much worse impact on their lives.

But I suppose those who don't care about 'deaths brought forward' or the vulnerable or who can't manage the basic politeness of wearing a mask to protect others in a shop don't care if people have the death they want either. Nor about the mental health impact on their children.

I've always had a feeling that for a lot of people they go through life not realizing at some point we all die. This is the first time they have faced their mortality

That’s not true for me personally, I am, however, acutely aware of the importance of a ‘good’ death and a covid death is not that, neither is one affected by the consequences of covid (fighting for support in the face of a limited health service). Ultimately the damage from a bad passing isn’t of concern to the deceased but the loved ones who grieve. I will do quite a lot to ensure that pain and distress is limited to myself and my family.

Yes sudden death happens and it’s brutal on those left. It’s not something that can be eradicated but it’s not something to aspire to for all deaths either.

Accepting your own mortality is more than accepting you die one day, it’s reconciling the consequences of it on everything else.

I'd still rather not die of something avoidable like covid.

But Covid isn’t avoidable, any more than other illnesses are. Not now. And not anywhere unless the likes of NZ keeps itself cut off forever.

We took enormous and unprecedented measures to suppress it. They were incredibly costly. They only partly worked.

We could do the same for lots of other illnesses. We could ban cars from the road to reduce RTA deaths. We could stop selling alcohol, processed meat, reduce cars and heavy industry (pollution) and that would reduce cancer deaths.

But we don’t, because quality of life matters too and we have become comfortable with a certain number of deaths from these causes.

Covid is exactly the same. Unfortunately there’s another thing we can die from out there. These incredible measures. to suppress it aren’t sustainable, thankfully vaccines will make it more manageable, but it isn’t going anywhere.