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?

^With billions across the world not vaccinated (and many years before anything close to most them will be) case numbers in the U.K. are the tiniest drop in the largest ocean*
There will be new variants regardless

Precisely
And enjoyable though the scare tactics are for some, wasn't it always obvious they'd arrive in advance on Monday, just as numbers nearly always shot up just before a Commons vote on restrictions?
It's almost as if folk have forgotten that SAGE report about the need for people to feel personally threatened

If

@Tupla

Mask wearing was never universal. People weren't wearing masks to eat and drink in restaurants and pubs, for instance. Children weren't wearing masks. People weren't wearing them when visiting other people's homes. So there were loads of opportunities for people to get infected. That doesn't mean the masks themselves were useless.

But if a large proportion of people weren't using them when they were required to do, what's the point in keeping the law in place that those people would continue to ignore. A law that's not enforced is pointless.

I was just addressing the point about Alpha cases rising rapidly when mask wearing was mandatory. It was only mandatory in certain situations and wasn't widespread. The situations I mentioned were ones where it was perfectly legal to not wear masks. I also think many, many workplaces didn't use them. There was some wording about supporting people to wear them if they wanted, but it wasn't even encouraged, far less mandatory.

Pure speculation, but I would guess there was much more transmission between people wearing masks in those situation, than there was from the few people who were illegally not wearing masks. In which case, you're right that enforcing the law wouldn't have a big effect. I wonder if encouraging masks in these other situations would have had a bigger effect.

[quote Doodlebug71]Oh, and this seem remarkably familiar territory. Last year, Johnson ignored the warnings until the UK was in a mess. Now that a really nasty new variant is on the loose, able to transmit whilst people are just passing by each other, he's decided to ditch restrictions, and rely on people's good old common sense, and personal responsibility to keep everyone safe.

www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/06/28/infection-through-fleeting-contact-with-the-delta-variant-leads-to-lockdowns-across-australia/?sh=425fa1615d4f[/quote]
Well, common sense, personal responsibility and the millions upon millions of highly effective vaccines that have been injected into the arms of those most likely to fall foul of this horrible virus.

DogFacedWoman

www.pbs.org/newshour/health/watch-live-white-house-covid-task-force-holds-news-briefing-5

In America 99.5% of the deaths are now in the unvaccinated.

COVID-19 becoming ‘a pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ warns CDC director

@TheKeatingFive

With billions across the world not vaccinated (and many years before anything close to most them will be) case numbers in the U.K. are the tiniest drop in the largest ocean.

There will be new variants regardless.

I feel like there is a difference though between countries that are struggling to vaccinate their population and a country like England saying fuck it we don't care anymore.

I feel like there is a difference though between countries that are struggling to vaccinate their population and a country like England saying fuck it we don't care anymore.

Yep. And like scientists are saying, England is a huge threat to those countries - and to the whole world.

Best the rest of the world can do is keep us out. Restrict borders to plague island.

@Kazzyhoward Yes. Given the circumstances it's our only option.

If the government had reintroduced some low-level restrictions in early June (as I repeatedly suggested), we could have avoided the need for one.

I feel like there is a difference though between countries that are struggling to vaccinate their population and a country like England saying fuck it we don't care anymore.

On some moral level?

I hate to hijack my least favourite phrase, but the variants don’t give a fuck about your perceived ‘moral’ difference. The bottom line is that the U.K.s unvaxxed population pool is absolutely tiny compared to others.

Also, the U.K. got up off its back, procured enough vaccines for its population and coordinated a successful roll out. Many other countries are ‘struggling’ because they didn’t prioritise it to the same degree. Why isn’t that taken into consideration. Morality is complex.

@TheKeatingFive

I feel like there is a difference though between countries that are struggling to vaccinate their population and a country like England saying fuck it we don't care anymore.

On some moral level?

I hate to hijack my least favourite phrase, but the variants don’t give a fuck about your perceived ‘moral’ difference. The bottom line is that the U.K.s unvaxxed population pool is absolutely tiny compared to others.

Also, the U.K. got up off its back, procured enough vaccines for its population and coordinated a successful roll out. Many other countries are ‘struggling’ because they didn’t prioritise it to the same degree. Why isn’t that taken into consideration. Morality is complex.

So it's Africa's own fault that they've got hardly anyone vaccinated, as opposed to the imperialist West who have spent centuries robbing them of resources?

Okay.

So it's Africa's own fault that they've got hardly anyone vaccinated, as opposed to the imperialist West who have spent centuries robbing them of resources?

Gosh nanny I see your comprehension skills haven’t improved a jot. No, I didn’t say that.

But it’s absolutely true that the U.K. put more effort and resource into vaccine rollout than most countries including many rich and influential ones.

Anyway it’s not me that’s interested in any kind of moral argument.

My point is a purely rational one. The unvaxxed population of the U.K. is a teeny tiny drop in the ocean of the billions of people across the world who have not been jabbed. If you’re worried about variants, worry about that pool of billions.

Well we've already managed to create one Variant that's left the world in tatters.

Well we've already managed to create one Variant that's left the world in tatters.

Jeez Nanny, it’s what viruses do. Do you think Boris cooked it up in a lab himself? Are you blaming the Indian population for delta?

I’m starting to see that much of this kind of response is just railing against the fact we can’t control nature. Well we never could. Best make your peace with it.

We are worried about France because of the South African variant - how is that the fault of the UK? The Indian variant has now wormed its way into every country - it was always going to. If Ebola had been rampant in a country which has a lot of back and forth travel to the UK we would have been fighting that.

This discussion has taken a hilarious turn.

Not just the usual 'laughing stock' stuff that's beein going on for 17 months, but now we have "the imperialist west", Britain 'creating' variants as though it were some sort of malign plan to 'leave the world in tatters'.

This desperation to see Britain as the root of everything that is bad in the world is weird.

This desperation to see Britain as the root of everything that is bad in the world is weird.

I think people are desperately clinging to an idea that Covid could have been ‘dealt with’ if it had been managed differently. Hence all the totally ridiculous comparisons to New Zealand and the like. They want to be able to attribute it to human error and have a target to blame, rather than acknowledge nature has the potential to fuck us all over and we don’t have much control.

Outside of containment in China, there weren’t and aren’t any magic solutions. We live in a global world, the damn thing gets everywhere. Closing borders was only going work for a select few countries and even then, can’t be done forever.

I’m in ROI and we’ve had the longest, harshest lockdown in the west and a glacially slow reopening (we don’t even have indoor dining yet). We’re putting in place divisive and discriminatory measures based on vaccination status.
Delta is rampaging wildly regardless.

Playing blame games is a distraction. We need to face up to the facts that covid is here to stay and none of our techniques to manage it have been particularly effective (except for vaccines, thank fuck for them).

none of our techniques to manage it have been particularly effective (except for vaccines, thank fuck for them)

Which is why we really don't want to re-import lots of the Beta variant, just as we're planning to let rip with transmission. We're setting the conditions for a new variant to emerge and thrive (high transmission, plenty of unvaccinated people notably all children and most u18s) and one that is already vaccine-escaping in that mix is not good news.

But in terms of trying to minimise import of a particular strain the govt is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Wonderful post @TheKeatingFive !!!

I just don’t understand why people conveniently forget China’s role in all this. They should be helping the world.

This plague is gonna run it’s course. 100% lockdown for years is the only thing that could work - but it has to be both ways, so covid areas would have to be like that plague village Eyam and shut themselves off with no medical intervention or food supplies. Is anyone in favour of this? No, I didn’t think so. Easier to think that “someone” has the power to end it all.

Which is why we really don't want to re-import lots of the Beta variant, just as we're planning to let rip with transmission

It’s just going to come down to transmissibility and dominant strains though is it? I think we need to acknowledge that policy decisions are limited in their effectiveness.

Delta got everywhere. Even closed border countries like Australia. The SA variant does not appear to be anything like as transmissible and perhaps having delta as dominant is protective rather than anything else. Who knows. But short of hard lockdowns and closed borders (both pretty well impossible at this stage) we aren’t going to halt it.

If both strains are in free circulatiin, the chances of people coming into contact with both simultaneously are raised, and the likelihood of new variant much increased.

This wasn't really a factor during lockdowns or the looser restrictions we have had in the last few of months, because transmission was pretty low

It's not going to be low in the foreseeable future

If both strains are in free circulatiin, the chances of people coming into contact with both simultaneously are raised, and the likelihood of new variant much increased.

Is it?

I thought the biggest risk was new variants emerging in immunocompromised patients.

Anyway, delta/beta merging could happen anywhere among the billions of unvaccinated. There’s nothing unique about the U.K.

Easier to think that “someone” has the power to end it all.

Exactly.