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Original poster

Surely opening up now is the least worst option?

184 replies

Warhertisuff · 16/07/2021 13:52

What's the point of continuing to suppress Covid at the moment. All it does it kick the can on the road..

Either we never, ever open up, or we have to accept that, when we do, cases will rise until we've acquired enough immunity through a combination of infection and vaccination.

At the moment, vaccines work pretty well against the current variants.... The more we suppress Covid now, the less immune as a society we'll be when a vaccine evasive variant (and it probably will whatever we do here), and if we can't relax restrictions now, we surely won't be able to over the autumn and winter.

Where we are is admittedly pretty shit, but continuing to suppress Covid now would just be counterproductive. "Letting it rip" sounds callous, but the alternatives seem worse or unworkable.

Yet many people seem determined to persist with the reflex to suppress Covid and continue with restrictions and measures to curtail spread. What's the point?

OP posts:
NRJ688 · 16/07/2021 18:37

Need to open up sometime! I think if they start more lockdowns after the vaccination effort people will finally just give up
Sorry but just going to have to live with the risks! they haven’t got all cars off the road because of the deaths / accidents they cause

Original poster
Warhertisuff · 16/07/2021 18:40

"let's wait until Easter 2022 before opening up"

The thing is, we'd still have a wave similar to what we are going through now if we did... with the realistic prospect of a vaccine resistant variant putting the scuppers on things...

OP posts:
GlassOfPort · 16/07/2021 18:46

I agree you are unlikely to catch Covid brushing past someone.

Sitting in the same bus of the same office with unmasked people for prolonged period of times is a completely different matter.

MercyBooth · 16/07/2021 18:48

I bet the ones who havent been affected by lockdowns and furloughed WFH are some of the same ones who moaned/moan about benefit "scroungers"

Mickarooni · 16/07/2021 18:51

Unfortunately, we are going to see an increase in infections as we open up more. One of the only things this government has been consistent about is that opening up will see an initial spike. If that’ll happen whenever we open, summer has to be the best time in terms of weather, school holidays and fewer winter bugs.

LemonCake79 · 16/07/2021 18:55

I agree, it's the least worst option. It's not ideal but it's now or have exactly the same case numbers but in the winter.

I also agree with posters who say if Whitty was desperately opposed to the plan he would resign.

Againstmachine · 16/07/2021 19:00

I agree most waves are artificially created by lockdowns.

Maybe we need to let it burn its self out.

Kazzyhoward · 16/07/2021 19:03

@AtomicBronde

The government should have made the wearing of masks mandatory in all settings, except for those exempt.

I just can’t fathom out why. Herd immunity, but not when so many are still not vaccinated!

Well, they are. And infections have risen to 50k per day WITH face coverings, so clearly they don't have a significant effect. Perhaps it's the pubs, restaurants, etc opening up a couple of months ago that has caused the increase.
LimitIsUp · 16/07/2021 19:12

A poster upthread was spot on when they said that those objecting to the current plan need to spell out what they think is the right way forward

Indigopearl · 16/07/2021 19:12

@Againstmachine

I agree most waves are artificially created by lockdowns.

Maybe we need to let it burn its self out.

You mean like they are doing in Brazil?

Let's just hope some of the projections don't play out. Worldometer are projecting a peak of 300k cases a day in mid sept and 700 deaths a day at which point their model suggests we will reintroduce social distancing.
covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom?view=daily-deaths&tab=trend

IcedPurple · 16/07/2021 19:15

What's the current vaccination rate in Brazil?

puppeteer · 16/07/2021 19:26

@neveradullmoment99

Dr Chris Witty and other supporters of this should be ashamed of themselves for backing a decision that supports the mass infection of the people of the UK and which can ultimately cause the death and illness of the people in the UK, many of whom are young and have a right to be protected. They are failing the public.
What on earth are you talking about?

You can be protected. Just stay at home and don’t go out. Get your shopping online, and sanitise it in a corner of the room. Easy.

I think your beef is perhaps that you’ll no longer get it on the taxpayer (because you’ll have to work), and it’s no longer law (but then it was never the rule for all anyway; many had no choice but to go to work, etc.).

We spent 18 months, and a whole ton of money failing to control the spread. Time to move on. Control your own life if you want, and your kids’. Butt out and leave me and mine to get on with living!

VanGoSunflowers · 16/07/2021 19:28

[quote SonnetForSpring]What international scientists think of freedom day

www.pscp.tv/w/c8Ay6DF4ZUVXWXJ5ek9OS1B8MXJteFB6Z3FlcHlHTuUhKTBsssfl8bRVzCfMboAOdzvi0I1IokhaKsR8hYQV?s=08[/quote]
I just watched this - the full hour.

Scary. I feel my opinions are changing. Would love to her a similar argument FOR opening now delivered by the scientific community (if such a thing exists)

Indigopearl · 16/07/2021 19:32

@IcedPurple

What's the current vaccination rate in Brazil?
Thankfully not at the 50% fully vaccinated sweet spot for breeding a vaccine resistant variant like we are.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.14.21253544v2.full

Sunshinegirl82 · 16/07/2021 19:38

@Indigopearl

That "modelling" (and I use the term loosely) just seems to anticipate that cases will just keep on doubling at the current rate indefinitely which seems spectacularly unlikely.

Also I'm suspicious of an agenda as it pretty much suggests that masks solve everything which we know isn't true.

IcedPurple · 16/07/2021 19:49

Top marks for a deflection attempt @Indigopearl but it's just not good enough.

Vaccination rates in Brazil are way lower than in Britain, as you know very well. To compare their situation to that of Britain - not even taking into account the many obvious differences between the countries - makes me think that you're just only prepared to see 'evidence' which supports your wish for another 'couple of months' of restrictions. And another 'couple of months' after that.

HelloMissus · 16/07/2021 20:15

Whitty has been clear that now is the time.
He’s not secretly terrified or horrified.
He’s been clear.

VanGoSunflowers · 16/07/2021 20:20

Does anyone feel this is simply a money thing? Not necessarily saying that’s bad.. or good. I don’t really know but would love to hear opinions.

The fact that many will no longer need to self isolate from August - that’s children and double vaccinated- to me, is a clear cut sign that the money is running out. It’s maybe cheaper at this juncture to open up and deal with the NHS fall out than to keep bank rolling furlough schemes etc?

Againstmachine · 16/07/2021 20:27

Whitty has been clear that now is the time.
He’s not secretly terrified or horrified.
He’s been clear.

And Vallance has been pictured amongst a crowd unmasked at Wimbledon

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 16/07/2021 20:33

@VanGoSunflowers

Does anyone feel this is simply a money thing? Not necessarily saying that’s bad.. or good. I don’t really know but would love to hear opinions.

The fact that many will no longer need to self isolate from August - that’s children and double vaccinated- to me, is a clear cut sign that the money is running out. It’s maybe cheaper at this juncture to open up and deal with the NHS fall out than to keep bank rolling furlough schemes etc?

Possibly. The “NHS fallout” will be a continuing catastrophe for anyone needing elective major surgery if ICU capacity, including surge capacity, is filled with Covid patients. And for the avoidance of doubt, almost all cancer surgery is classed as elective.
cleocleo16 · 16/07/2021 21:27

@IcedPurple

Yet many people seem determined to persist with the reflex to suppress Covid and continue with restrictions and measures to curtail spread. What's the point?

Because they don't understand that the least worst option is just that - the least worst. People seem to think we can 'control' the virus when we really can't. It's here to say. Many people are going to get sick, some seriously. A month from now, schools will be going back. A month later, it's coming into winter. And then flu season. And so on and so forth. There's no 'best' time to open up. It's all a risk. But doing so in high summer is indeed the least worst option.

Yes totally agree. They would just keep extending it and extending it.
MrsRLynde · 16/07/2021 21:33

That "modelling" (and I use the term loosely) just seems to anticipate that cases will just keep on doubling at the current rate indefinitely which seems spectacularly unlikely.

Biscuit
BogRollBOGOF · 16/07/2021 21:38

It was an unpopular opinion last year but I was (literally) banging my head in frustration at the slow reopening and deferring many returns until August then September.
We had the rule of 6 (strict enough to rule out the right to family life for anyone with more than one child). We had masks since July 24th.
We had all the sanitising and dustancing (proximity and capacity)
Still the cases grew through the autumn triggering two lockdowns and the Kent virus.
Lockdown only shifts the timing of virus transmission and at huge social and economic cost. We don't have the financial and emotional reserves to continue this stance in a society where other than CEV children, the most vulnerable members of society have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. It's not going to be 100%, but nothing is, and "safe" is a false concept.

In September, exposed to society and education for the first time in nearly 6 months, the testing system was buckling from children's immune systems upgrading to the latest variations of colds. At least this year we avoid that and u18s have had exposure and more immunity before their return to education.

Delta has meant that conditions are not as optimal as they would have been forecast when the roadmap was drawn up in February, but because of the existence of every other seasonal infection that we are used to living with (which can be killers to the most vulnerable, even colds and norovirus) we are better to ride out a managable wave in the summer without the other seasonal issues

Deferring for one month gave us chance to see that vaccination is significantly mitigating the worst effects of the virus to a managable level.

There will be no perfect time, and even countries like Australia are having to cause regular disruption to suppress the low numbers. It is still a strategy of huge wider cost.

We need to open up. Whatever we do or don't do, the virus is damaging. What we can control is the wider impacts of our response.

cleocleo16 · 16/07/2021 21:54

@neveradullmoment99

Dr Chris Witty and other supporters of this should be ashamed of themselves for backing a decision that supports the mass infection of the people of the UK and which can ultimately cause the death and illness of the people in the UK, many of whom are young and have a right to be protected. They are failing the public.
Don't we do this every year with the flu? Explain to me how it is different. Should we lock down every year for the flu to prevent those deaths too?