100,000 cases a day by August....bloody hell

[ssd]

We're all going to get it eventually it seems

Or of course *

Yes, I agree.

@NannyAndJohn

It feels like early March 2020 all over again.

The warning signs are all there but our government and Joe Public have their heads in the sand.

No it doesn't.

It really, really doesn't.

It doesn't feel like the start of the second wave, either, let alone March last year.

Where I live has had the highest numbers for infections in England for a few weeks now. Last week our infection rate was 812/100k with around 800 positive cases a day. At the moment our trust has 38 people in hospital and six on ventilation. We've had no deaths for two weeks.

Yes, that will likely rise. But it's a very, very different picture to late autumn when our daily hospital admissions were in the hundreds - and daily cases were nowhere near as high.

[quote unwuthering]Meanwhile...

As a senior colleague put it to me: “Are they fucking mad?” To which I could only stare at the floor, feeling desperate. For this is where we are. The UK population, whether we like it or not, is now Boris Johnson’s personal petri dish. Yet before we even reach the projected 100,000 new cases of Covid a day, the NHS – as both Johnson and Javid must know – is already on its knees. The question of whether the workforce will be able to cope is entirely academic. Demand is already unmanageable, staff are already sounding the alarm in droves and patient safety is already being compromised in hospitals up and down the country.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/11/nhs-dropping-covid-restrictions-patients-backlog[/quote]
What NHS staff have had to deal with is truly terrible and I can't imagine how difficult it has been.

The problem is we are now between a rock and a hard place. The issues within the NHS are systemic and would take years to resolve. We can't just conjure up more doctors, nurses, midwives etc no matter how much money we throw at the system.

The delays in treatment to non covid conditions have already happened and the backlog is already there. It isn't going away. It will realistically take years to resolve.

When we release restrictions (whenever that is) there will be a rise in cases and subsequently hospitalisations and deaths (although the vaccine is doing a lot of heavy lifting in terms of keeping people out of hospital).

If we delay relaxing restrictions (bearing in mind that the current level of restrictions is insufficient to prevent significant growth in case numbers in any event) we might, at best, delay the peak in cases but that means we are approaching Winter and the additional covid cases will coincide with the standard winter pressure on the NHS.

If we want to reduce cases we would need to increase restrictions (close non essential shops, stop indoor mixing etc) as current restrictions are insufficient to prevent the growth in cases. I think the government is aware there would be limited public appetite for further lockdowns (and the economy can't continue to sustain them).

ONS estimated that at 14th June 90% of the adult population had covid antibodies. Vaccines for children are a long way off yet.

I can see the logic behind trying to get the inevitable peak in cases over with now, with high levels of antibodies in the adult population and prior to the winter surge of "usual" viruses. I can see there are pros and cons but it's not a completely illogical position to assume in my view (none of the options are great!)

It's a risky strategy, but it's either that or delay to Autumn/Winter when NHS is already at capacity or try to get over the hump now.

The thing that worries me most is that strategy only works of you can only catch Covid seriously once and subsequent infections are less serious. I would feel more comfortable with proper restrictions on travel as getting another new strain of this seems to be biggest risk.

@rookiemere

It's a risky strategy, but it's either that or delay to Autumn/Winter when NHS is already at capacity or try to get over the hump now.

The thing that worries me most is that strategy only works of you can only catch Covid seriously once and subsequent infections are less serious. I would feel more comfortable with proper restrictions on travel as getting another new strain of this seems to be biggest risk.

We know you can catch Covid more than once, and there are many anecdotal reports of people being iller the second time. There is a huge absence of real evidence on this (one wonders why because plenty of people have caught it twice by now). There is also the Manaus, Brazil example where a very high % of the population caught it in the first wave (enough many said for herd immunity), but they still had a second wave of a different variant.

I've been all for travel restrictions but given we're the one with the sky high rates of infection now, I'm not sure that should be the focus at the moment (except for other countries - totally understand why they wouldn't want us there).

There is no 'hump' to get over. We don't have to have subsequent waves of infection - lots of other countries haven't. It's not something that has to happen. It's something the government is choosing. If when infections were low, we'd opened up with a proper test and trace system, proper support for isoation and reasonable measures then we wouldn't be where we are. There would be no 'hump'.

There’s also the main point, that we were locking down so that the vaccine program could catch up. Once every adult has been offered a vaccine what are you locking down for? What is your end goal considering that every time we open up cases sky rocket?

There’s also sense in trying to get this wave out of the way now while antibodies are still high in the adult population. Before the booster campaign.
It’s the right time to do this. We need to move away from case numbers and keep an eye on hospitals and deaths.

@Delatron

There’s also sense in trying to get this wave out of the way now while antibodies are still high in the adult population. Before the booster campaign. It’s the right time to do this. We need to move away from case numbers and keep an eye on hospitals and deaths.

Well said. The whole point of the lockdowns was to flatten the curve of hospitalisations and deaths. Now that the latter are low (and still low despite high daily infections), no reason to continue with restrictions.

The only way to reduce infections is go back to lockdown. It's the only thing that has reduced infection numbers. Is that what people want? Keeping masks/SD will have a minimal affect on infections over the next few weeks.

@Delatron

There’s also sense in trying to get this wave out of the way now while antibodies are still high in the adult population. Before the booster campaign. It’s the right time to do this. We need to move away from case numbers and keep an eye on hospitals and deaths.

The risk is the virus mutates further and the next variant will be a bit more vaccine resistant. Obviously no one knows if that will happen but it's always a risk every time another person is infected so with 100k infections a day, the risk is 100k times higher too.

No the "real" risk is a knackered economy due to restrictions that prevent businesses from operating, thus lack of tax revenues, higher unemployment, more people with less money meaning less spending, all resulting in more benefits needed to be paid, and thus higher borrowings, higher debt to repay and higher interest to pay. That means even less money in the pot for the NHS and other public services.

@nordica but cases will rise (and with it the risk of mutations) every time we come out of lockdown.
Rolling lockdowns would make this worse.

We have to get through this wave now and finally allow it to peak and fall naturally. Stopping this endless cycle of lockdowns which hasn’t worked to stop cases rising. It just paused the process.

To stop a rise in cases you would need to stay in permanent lockdown?

I honestly don’t know how anyone can argue to hammer the economy even more when deaths are not high and the NHS is not overwhelmed. What’s your justification?

@Delatron agree to an extent but they also need to quickly address isolation periods then. If they supposedly want economy back and don't care anymore about the virus spreading - why am I still isolating everything I 'come into contact'?

Well the government can do one I'm not isolating again unless I have symptoms.

I think that the virus has mutated so much from its original form that we need better vaccines, or rather the one that is in research at the moment to make a universal vaccine that targets ALL variants, that is the only way we can get life back to any semblance of what it was before. I think the vaccines in use now are good but not good enough anymore due to the Delta so some restrictions are needed also.

Yes I agree @doesparentingsuck they need to ditch all isolations now.

The scientists have already said they will tweak the vaccines every year for new variants. Surely that’s a better strategy than continuing with ‘restrictions’

@itchybitch

I think that the virus has mutated so much from its original form that we need better vaccines, or rather the one that is in research at the moment to make a universal vaccine that targets ALL variants, that is the only way we can get life back to any semblance of what it was before. I think the vaccines in use now are good but not good enough anymore due to the Delta so some restrictions are needed also.

You can't make a vaccine which targets variants that haven't happened yet.

Obviously we'd all love a vaccine that's 100% effective but that'll never happen, either. And neither can we live with restrictions indefinitely, preventing sections of society being unable to open fully. That's just not sustainable.

A year is too long, this virus is a fast mutater, they cannot keep up with all the variants, they started work on one for the South African strain but then the Delta became dominant, so they are going to work on that one, by the time it is ready, we will have a new dominant variant.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/universal-covid-vaccine-tackling-variants-23494665

But the vaccines are holding up against these variants enough. Not 100%.

The flu vaccine is often only 50-60% effective but that’s enough too.

The flu vaccine is enough for the flu

Covid is not at all like the flu, faster mutater, a lot more transmissible, higher death rate.

I do not think the vaccines are good enough at the moment to open up all society and do away with distancing and masks. Its insanity

What is good enough? 100%? You’ll be locked down for a very long time waiting for that. There needs to be balance.