New Boris Statement: Where is this going?

[DadAManger]

‘We recommend masks but only recommend them’
‘Deaths will increase and we may reach 100,000 new cases per day’
‘We must open now and if not now, when?’
‘The slower we take it, the smaller number of people will die’
‘Return to the office of you can, otherwise keep working from home’

Just before Boris spoke, there was a BBC piece claiming that 10-20% of all Covid cases (mild, without symptoms, or otherwise) will be long-Covid cases of some sort or another. Now there a million long-Covid cases.

Are we aiming for herd immunity? Anyone else think this is going to be confusing for most and lead to a default setting of ‘normal’? Where is this going?

I will also add, we are going back to the same place again.

Underfunding by the Tories.

Needs investment. Labour come in and pile money in.

People claim Labour are being frivolous with money.

Tories come in. Under fund.

It’s worth doing a bit of reading up on the economic performance of previous governments to challenge any assumptions you any have.

It's called experience, Iggly - as in too many years of dealing with public sector mentalities and witnessing exactly what happens each time further funding is allocated

There's little point in giving examples as many have got there before me, it's just too depressing and in any case there are none so blind, etc, etc ...

@DadAManger

‘We recommend masks but only recommend them’ ‘Deaths will increase and we may reach 100,000 new cases per day’ ‘We must open now and if not now, when?’ ‘The slower we take it, the smaller number of people will die’ ‘Return to the office of you can, otherwise keep working from home’

Just before Boris spoke, there was a BBC piece claiming that 10-20% of all Covid cases (mild, without symptoms, or otherwise) will be long-Covid cases of some sort or another. Now there a million long-Covid cases.

Are we aiming for herd immunity? Anyone else think this is going to be confusing for most and lead to a default setting of ‘normal’? Where is this going?

According to Susan Hopkins, this wave is expected to run for for three more doublings before the peak.

(Which could lead to unprecedented numbers of cases, 4000 a day daily admissions. A similar number on ventilation to the January peak and about 20,000 people a day getting Long covid. And thousands of deaths as well, obviously.

@Iggly

Funding was trebled over the Blair/Brown years but the service wasn't 3 times better. Maybe because some of that money was paid to GPs to pay them more for doing less - not that it solved the recruitment/retention problem either. Though our local hospital did get a huge piece of artwork attached to the outside wall of the maternity dept that cost tens of thousands! (Not sure how many lives that saved nor how it reduced waiting lists!)

That doesn’t prove your argument that the money would be pissed up the wall. Nor does it prove that wholesale change is needed.

I’m a firm believer that it’s rare that full scale overhaul is needed. The nhs needs to be allowed to run without being chopped and changed constantly and with proper funding.

The funding put in under Blair was again after years of under funding and was just to play catch up. And performance did improve. I remember - and I was only a teenager - stories of people dying in corridors under the Tories in the mid 1990s.

The mistake that Blair made was to change things structurally. Politicians always think they know best when it comes to the nhs.

I've worked for the NHS, it's massively wasteful. Things like ridiculous hiring practices where they need a permanent member of staff, have found their own suitable candidate but aren't allowed to directly employ them so have to get the candidate signed up with an external employment agency who then make a nice living off doing nothing other than just dealing with the payroll for that member of staff. Or paying the best part of a tenner for one bog standard little pad of post it notes because they're only allowed to buy from the one approved supplier. Or ridiculously convoluted and labour intensive admin around things like new referrals which are supposed to be in place to prevent patients falling through the cracks but don't actually work out that way.

It’s called covering the bases.

By stating it’s up to the individual if it goes wrong - it’s not his fault

Thing is, some of those who really ought to be most considerate about their behaviour are least likely to be so. Unvaccinated yobs (not saying this is all the unvaccinated group, of course) aren’t likely to wear masks on the tube or self-isolate.

They never have though so it makes zero difference to that group. In my local shop many don’t wear masks, or distance and the staff won’t confront them - and I don’t blame them to be honest.

The biggest cohort of unvaccinated people is children. There is a vaccine approved for 12-17 year olds. Why are they not being offered it now?

Boris is sticking with the freedom day, as he want's you all to feel happy and free again, and this will please a lot of people, and make him look good too. It's a pipe dream,as he can't square up to anything besides looking good to all people. He has had covid himself,so he is an expert, so you must always believe what he says !!

@1forAll74

Boris is sticking with the freedom day, as he want's you all to feel happy and free again, and this will please a lot of people, and make him look good too. It's a pipe dream,as he can't square up to anything besides looking good to all people. He has had covid himself,so he is an expert, so you must always believe what he says !!

I bet the ICU staff are wishing they didn't do such a good job when he was in last April.

@NannyAndJohn really? The hysteria amazes me. How many times does it have to be clarified that this virus is mild in the vast majority of cases. Particularly in children actually. Feel free to live in an underground bunker for the rest of your life if that feels better. I'll be cracking on.

I think he could have insisted on masks on public transport, in shops and in health care settings without to much push back. These are places that people don’t have much choice about using. It would have let the vulnerable feel somewhat protected when out and about.

@Leedsfan247 do you actually believe that this could ever be the fault of a single person? Whether they are PM or not? Oh to live in such a black and white world.

He’s in charge - unfortunately

Tell that to the families of the 50 people that died from Covid yesterday

@Saucery

It’s less ‘herd immunity’ and more ‘survival of the fittest’.

That's what the Nazis believed in!

Labour didn't pile any money into our hospital, quite the opposite, it was failing, locals were scared of ending up there, endless horror stories emitting from the poor souls who ended up there, injected with the wrong drugs, left to labour alone etc.

Under the tories its actually had a massive regeneration.

I just wish 12-18 could have vaccine to protect them and help keep schools open. I shall continue to wear a mask on public transport and indoors with strangers regardless. Wearing a paper mask does not bother me too much and I am asthmatic.

I lost my dad to covid so if restrictions stayed in place for another year I’d be quite happy.
But I feel whatever the gvmt do it will be wrong for 50% of the population. And taking precautionary measures should absolutely be in the public’s hands. I get sick of the gvmt being blamed for the general public’s stupidity. So whatever happens, I shall continue to wear a mask, and avoid crowded places etc etc.

Apologies for the flipancy

@Leedsfan247

Tell that to the families of the 50 people that died from Covid yesterday

Lots of people died for lots of reasons yesterday. Where is the sense of proportion.

@lovecats3 I have a Castlegrade mask, it's a N95 grade and they are FDA and airline approved in the USA. Castlegrade have an instagram profile and are really helpful on email. I will be wearing mine tomorrow for my face to face meeting in the NHS where they have asked for N95 masks.

Yeah a clown of a PM talking about the common sense of the People in this country. Last week there was a news article about someone shoving 6 Creme Eggs up their backside.

Herd immunity is impossible. They lost control over everything and put on a superspreader event with the football. As guess what you don’t test positive until after you start showing symptoms and lateral flow tests are chronically unreliable anyway.

And even fully vaccinated people can catch it and die from this virus and people behave as if it makes them immune and invincible.

I see Scotland has kept mandatory masks and favours legal controls on this still and will do so ‘for some time to come’.

50 people died from Covid - more families mourning grandparents, parents, husbands, wives - today in the UK, the highest number since early April.

We are now being told to expect 2,000 - 4,000 people per day being admitted to hospital during this wave (BBC - 13th July 6:00pm) if people mingle and are not responsible.

The doctors at the BMA have heavily criticised the new approach in England (see earlier post) today.

Surely it is not just ‘if not now, when’ or ‘I’m sick of this now’. Do we really know more than the doctors and key NHS workers that are warning us now? I know I certainly don’t.

@Iggly spot on!!! Tories underfund and labour fund!

Don't understand the problem. Even if 30 million people in the UK got a positive covid reading.... As long as the deaths and hospital admissions remain low, then that's all that matters. That's the point in the vaccine. You can still catch the virus, you just won't suffer the same and need hospitalised. So if course its time to open up when most adults have now been given the choice to have at least their 1st dose if not 2nd.