British scientists and health professionals call against opening on the 19th of July

[roguetomato]

They can call all they want.

But it's not just health, wealth and education, work, career progression, just general social recovery for all can't be put on hold for eternity.

Vaccines are keeping hospitalisations down, not eliminated but the numbers of fully jabbed in hospital are small, manageable at least.

I thought what they are all saying really make sense and sensible. No one wants restriction forever, it's matter of when.

There are not that many restrictions now. Keeping face coverings, no large crowds at Old Trafford etc, is not going to have much impact on the economy.

@frozendaisy it is not putting life on hold any more.

Ask an osteopath whether you should take up running and they'll say no. Ask road safety experts whether the limit on any stretch of road should be reduced and they'll say yes. Ask a fireman whether you should have candles on your dinner table and they'll say no.

If you want different answers ask a different category of experts.

Thing is cases are rising anyway with things how they are. Look at Scotland.

@newnortherner111

There are not that many restrictions now. Keeping face coverings, no large crowds at Old Trafford etc, is not going to have much impact on the economy.

@frozendaisy it is not putting life on hold any more.

All hospitality is running on restrictive numbers still this has an effect on them being able to trade in profit The same with theatre ect

This is the busiest summer I have ever seen in over 20 years in the NHS. All the other bugs that were held at bay last winter have come back with a vengeance. We're going to be fucked.

Well, if I want to know whether it's sensible for people to have massively increased contact with each other in a viral pandemic, I'd probably ask doctors and scientists first off, rather than erm, balloonists or sculptors (pace experts in those fields) as science and medicine are most relevant to the desired outcome of short and long term health goals.

@MurielSpriggs

Ask an osteopath whether you should take up running and they'll say no. Ask road safety experts whether the limit on any stretch of road should be reduced and they'll say yes. Ask a fireman whether you should have candles on your dinner table and they'll say no.

If you want different answers ask a different category of experts.

This

It won't happen, which I think is the sensible thing. The government just want people to think they tried really hard and it's the fault of the scientists an doctors. Shameful.

@MurielSpriggs

Ask an osteopath whether you should take up running and they'll say no. Ask road safety experts whether the limit on any stretch of road should be reduced and they'll say yes. Ask a fireman whether you should have candles on your dinner table and they'll say no.

If you want different answers ask a different category of experts.

This is a seriously dense argument to use for covid.

I think what they are saying makes great sense and the UK is being completely reckless. There is a good overview of the points by Dr Campbell
m.youtube.com/watch?v=m_DDqsqhrfE

1. It will disproportionally affect children and young people - long term impacts don't depend on the severity of infection and we coukd be left with a generation with chronic fatigue and other issues. Plus there is the issue of clinically vulnerable children not being vaccinated.

1. 17 million people in the UK have zero protection

1. Transmission in schools will cause continual educational disruption

1. Impact on health services and waiting lists will continue to grow

1. Emergence of vaccine resistant variants - there is likely to be a selection pressure on the virus to produce variants that are vaccine resistant

So basically if we don't want to be locked down again in the autumn dealing with a resistant variant and want to have a functioning health service we would be wise to carry on exercising caution until we get more of the population vaccinated.

This is a seriously dense argument to use for covid.

Well, my apologies for falling short of your high standards of intellectual rigour!

Covid and the response to it are massively complex interdisciplinary issues, involving medicine, economics, politics, law, education, sociology and ethics.

If you only consider advice from epidemiologists you will not make the best decisions.

@herecomesthsun

Well, if I want to know whether it's sensible for people to have massively increased contact with each other in a viral pandemic, I'd probably ask doctors and scientists first off, rather than erm, balloonists or sculptors (pace experts in those fields) as science and medicine are most relevant to the desired outcome of short and long term health goals.

We need to ask economists and business people too. The country needs to be back on its feet. Every day hundreds of thousands of second jabs kick into peak effectiveness so we got better all the time. Scientists can be too blinkered by their own specialty

@SonnetForSpring🤣

@MurielSpriggs

This is a seriously dense argument to use for covid.

Well, my apologies for falling short of your high standards of intellectual rigour!

Covid and the response to it are massively complex interdisciplinary issues, involving medicine, economics, politics, law, education, sociology and ethics.

If you only consider advice from epidemiologists you will not make the best decisions.

Indeed - the scientists only have to answer the question ‘how do we control Covid?’

Politicians - and the rest of us - have to answer the question ‘how do we control Covid while at the same not destroying the economy and negatively impacting on the physical health and mental well being of the entire nation?’

@MurielSpriggs
I actually think this is a really important point and still misunderstood. The question we have posed to epidemiologists is “If you could do anything and ignoring all adverse consequences, what is the most effective way to reduce the spread of covid”. Locking everyone in their house indefinitely is an obvious answer to that question (and you don’t need to be an epidemiologist to come up with it) but that doesn’t make it good policy. The perfect answer to this question is probably to kill the whole population as this would be really effective in eliminating covid. The epidemiologists have not even had to consider the overall health consequences of lockdown let alone the economic, social etc. consequences. And of course they shouldn’t have to consider these things because they are not experts in them and are not supposed to be making policy. But they shouldn’t then be accusing the government of failing to follow the science because it has taken other factors into account when making policy decisions.

It’s like setting up a breast cancer task force and asking a top surgeon how best to reduce breast cancer rates and they propose cutting every woman’s breasts off. It would probably work to reduce cancer but would clearly be terrible policy.

Or the answer to climate change being to immediately turn everyone’s electricity off.

Scientists are not asking for lock down. Are people so stupid, they still don't understand. We have lockdowns because politicians are too slow to adapt to the virus. Scientists are arguing for sensible precautions not lockdowns!!!!! Lockdowns are the result of failed government strategy!!!!!

The thing is, that it might SEEM that politics and economics is independent of scientific understanding of disease but ACTUALLY if you just plough on regardless you find that society grinds to a halt under the burden of disease.

We tried just plugging on in March 2020 and it didn't work - we ended up with one of the worst outcomes globally from the 3rd wave medically AND a massive lockdown impinging on our society financially - as well.

As Chris Whitty has repeatedly said, you can't divorce economic considerations from health considerations in hope of a better economic outcome, the two must be looked at together.

It is taking us such a long time to learn this.

@herecomesthsun

The thing is, that it might SEEM that politics and economics is independent of scientific understanding of disease but ACTUALLY if you just plough on regardless you find that society grinds to a halt under the burden of disease.

We tried just plugging on in March 2020 and it didn't work - we ended up with one of the worst outcomes globally from the 3rd wave medically AND a massive lockdown impinging on our society financially - as well.

As Chris Whitty has repeatedly said, you can't divorce economic considerations from health considerations in hope of a better economic outcome, the two must be looked at together.

It is taking us such a long time to learn this.

We are literally repeating the same cycle over and over.

*This is a seriously dense argument to use for covid."

If you look at some of those like Michie on this conference it isn't that dense.

You have idiots like her with agendas putting two peneth in.

@Againstmachine

*This is a seriously dense argument to use for covid."

If you look at some of those like Michie on this conference it isn't that dense.

You have idiots like her with agendas putting two peneth in.

I really don't know why everyone picks on michie. It's nuts. There are other behavioural scientists you know.

The cases will inevitably rise once we reopen, the government know they can't delay reopening without ignorant people protesting so they will open on the 19th and when more people die and cases rise it will be our own fault and will give them reason to put us back into lockdown

I really don't know why everyone picks on michie. It's nuts. There are other behavioural scientists you know.

Probably because she has very clear agendas and she shouldn't be telling people to wear masks as her scientific opinion has no value in this instance.