96 dead today...

[Homeontherangeuk]

But Boris knows what he's doing...

I think a lot of people are still clinging to an idea that covid will eventually be ‘over’. It won’t, or not without much more efficacious vaccines, which are years away. The mindset needs to shift to longer term management. Thankfully the vaccines we do have are taking the severity and sting out of it.

I agree. I think the closest we’re going to get to it being ‘over’ is people stopping obsessing over it.

The hyperbole on this thread is crazy but it’s the same posters as always.
It reminds me of Christmas and January when we had sheepandcow all over every thread. I haven’t seen them for ages.

@sashagabadon

The hyperbole on this thread is crazy but it’s the same posters as always. It reminds me of Christmas and January when we had sheepandcow all over every thread. I haven’t seen them for ages.

Maybe that's the same poster as Nanny and John?

I think the closest we’re going to get to it being ‘over’ is people stopping obsessing over it.

100% this! There's definitely a select few who live and breathe all things covid without any concept whatsoever of anything else. Not obsessing doesn't mean ignoring covid though as no doubt some will assume, we need to look at everything with a wider context and accept there will be casualties in many different forms along the way

I think the closest we’re going to get to it being ‘over’ is people stopping obsessing over it.

Yup. Absolutely.

And the media have the biggest role to play on that.

In that

And I agree with keating, it is not going to be over. Double jabbed people can still catch it but thankfully are lots less sick. But we do have to live with it circulating and hence why zero Covid is a dangerous strategy that leads you up a culdesac.
Reminds me of the Grand Old Duke of York with his “neither up or down”

Interesting that the continued drip-feeding of case numbers, death stats etc seems to be really anxiety generating for some.

Recently published paper examining this:

@MarshaBradyo

The measures I have mentioned, such as masks and SD in some contexts, would go ways into reducing transmission whilst having little impact on the economy and other aspects. A blanket drop of all restrictions for "freedom day" was not sensible

But they weren’t. Have you been out? Where are you and what have you seen

Because here in mid to central London not much has changed in terms of behaviour.

"Have you been out?"

I appreciate the implication that I've been hiding terrified in my house for the past 18 months, but as I've repeatedly said, I'm not personally concerned about getting COVID, I'm concerned about the population-level impacts of uncontrolled transmission.

Yes, I've been going to work on public transport to a busy teaching hospital and popping into restaurants and cafes. Clearly, when all restrictions are dropped and "freedom day" is announced there is going to be less engagement with mask wearing and SD, which is what I've seen, especially on the tube. It's not good practise to put the onus on individuals when it should be guidance coming from PHE and the government.

It's not lockdown or no lockdown, these measures will help reduce transmission, and SD in certain contexts (i.e, not hospitality) doesn't have adverse impacts relative to other NPIs.

Some people are always on to the next thing. Do you remember when in the early days there were posters swearing blind that they’d contracted covid from the post? Then there were the unnecessary shopping trips, cycle rides, dog walks and - the very worst - sitting on a park bench .

Last summer it was covidiots flocking to beaches or touching a gate post. Anyone eating out was a murderer. And all the covid sufferers…. Pages and pages of people with terrible symptoms. And as for the schools threads….

Then came all the vaccination drama: “Why why why aren’t I top of the list?! “ Followed by “I had the AZ and now I’ve turned into a giraffe”

Then the blasted charts, invariably showing that you had four minutes to live and that the UK was the absolute worst place to live on the planet.

It’s exhausting. The political posters have been out in force, jumping on an opportunity for strife, the hypochondriacs, the “this all suits me fine” crew and the downright thick who never read another post but feel the need to broadcast their idiotically simplistic and usually selfish views.

Clearly, when all restrictions are dropped and "freedom day" is announced there is going to be less engagement with mask wearing and SD

That’s what I mean it’s not that clear. 100% compliance on overground SE London at 9ish

I have read posts on another thread where people have said same.

Legally no longer necessary but definitely not the case I saw even lower amount wearing. Maybe more

That’s very true Dotty. Remember when the big focus was the number of tests done a day. Not number of positives, we didn’t seem to care about that number at all, it was all how many tests themselves are being done.
The wheel turns and it just moves on to the next thing.
Once cases start to drop again, people will lose interest in case numbers and it’ll be all about something else, “boosters” is my prediction. We’ll all become obsessed with that

@LemonSwan

The fuck that brigade, with their personal responsibility, which basically translates to "I'm alright jack and did everyone else"

Yeah thats you btw!

'I am alright jack' while minimum wage carers were working through the pandemic unvaccinated caring for those with covid because they kept getting sent out of hospital with covid. To those shop workers who enabled you to eat. To the delivery drivers. To the energy, water, emergency services - you name it.

Was OK for them to keep working wasn't it.

Your fucking turn now. And if you dont want to thats fine. But dont you dare getting on a fucking high horse and stop other people living their lives when thousands in this country risked theirs with no vaccinations for over a year.

You want it all. Food in your shops, delivery to your door, no risk, low infection rates, perpetual lockdowns/ restrictions and for you to be the ones continually wrapped up in cotton wool. Your just take take take. Dont want to take any personal responsibility. Because your all right jack.

And thats that.

Leaving this thread its infuriating.

Yes, and no.

Everyone was safer if overall at the societal level if each individual had less social contacts.

Carers were safer if relatives kept away. Or better still used their furlough time to care for their own relatives. They didn't.

Health care staff were safer if outside of work they had fewer social contacts, and fewer non essential contacts in work.

Shop workers likewise safer if we make fewer trips to shops.

Delivery drivers safer under social distancing.

Whilst I agree that working class people on lower incomes make up the bulk of workers in the essential infrastructure, that these same people work for peanuts, and more often live in more overcrowded housing, have poorer diets and health in general have disproportionately been at greater risk, that risk is still reduced if control measures are in place.

Almost everyone at this stage has made sacrifices. Of course its easier to live under lockdown if you have the privilege of few financial worries, comfortable spacious home, a functional family life, outside space, a good well paid wfh gig. But its easier to live a comfortable secure life in those circumstances without lockdown too. Perhaps we should be glad that a percentage of comfortable people in secure well paid wfh employment were happy to forgo their own freedoms for the greater good of everyone. Just as I'm very grateful to those essential workers.

@NannyAndJohn

This isn't the "exit wave", it's only the third of many to come if the government refuse to bring back restrictions.

I'm so sick of the term 'exit wave'

exit from what? from lockdown? covid? pandemic?

This is the 3rd wave. Without strong mitigations and without strict social controls we see rises or waves. Well I never, who would think!

High infection rates in a partially vaccinated population risk creating variants that evade our present vacines. High infection rates create the conditions for the virus to mutate anyway, but the virus that can side step the vaccine better has the advantage over any that doesn't. Added to this is the fact that we have no idea how long we have immunity with the vaccine, or with naturally acquired immunity. People are catching covid more than once, and different mutations, and in some cases catching two strains at one time.

So, yeah......what exactly is this exit I keep hearing about.

@Pieceofpurplesky

Fairyliz 60% of those that are dying have not been vaccinated. The 40% that have could possibly be those vulnerable/old etc

Have not been fully vaccinated. Some will have received one dose.

@sirfredfredgeorge

Non-pharmaceutical interventions such as masks, social distancing, ventilation, working from home, testing to identify carriers, isolating contacts of detected cases etc protect everybody by reducing the prevalence of the virus in the community

We had all those things until the 19th of July, over 1% of the UK were infected and R remained well over 1, they're not particularly effective.

What's the point of ineffective measures that don't get R below 1?

This is my concern too. They're not working, not enough, so what's the benefit in carrying on with them and weathering the attendant downsides?

@changingstages they have already stated by Jvt that a smaller longer exit wave is likely to cause more overall death (not just from covid) as it will occur closer to the winter.

@NannyAndJohn

This isn't the "exit wave", it's only the third of many to come if the government refuse to bring back restrictions.

This will be the last significant wave (as long as a vaccine beating variant doesn't come along) any more will be miniscule and will be dealt with at a local level. I thought you with your almighty maths degree may have understood that.

Lockdowns dont remove it they simply suppress so as you remove restrictions cases rise up - hence the exit wave.

This being an exit wave doesnt mean we wont get more waves/clusters down the line just that this is partly due to restrictions being lifted

Call it an ‘releasing restrictions’ wave if you prefer.

I agree its a wave whatever prefix you attach to it.

But, we will see further waves.....if as Tuba437 suggests a vaccine beating variant rocks up we will see a wave.

If as Quartz2208 suggests we see local or regional clusters (of any existing or new variant) as long as we collect, collate and report at a national level we have a wave.

Unless a wave isn't an uptick in cases and attendant fall. Perhaps my understanding is incorrect.

But I do think it remains true that without significant controls there is no exit, because people appear to have limited immunity over time especially to new variants, and a new variant will have an advantage over other variants if it can side step existing vaccines. So at some point we will read the lines '4th wave' long before we read 'outbreak'

Added to this is that these waves are entirely engineered by human intervention and behaviour. We can control the rate at which it infects, and therefore to a lesser extent the rate at which it mutates, and to a lesser extent how by giving the virus less vectors due to our behaviour. There is no wave that we can analyse to understand the behaviour of the virus that is independent of our intervention.

My other concern is this, if at the end of this wave (assuming 'exit refers to end of control measures) we retrospectively look at the number of excess deaths from covid resulting from cessation of control measures, (excess being the difference between death rate in the lead up to the 19th and the rates from the 19th to the natural end of the wave, assuming there is an end into which we haven't intervened with control measures) then it could be said that number of deaths was avoidable. But even more so when in 6 weeks or 8 weeks time Bojo and co panic and run out front to send us back to our houses. And they will thus making a mockery of 'exit' and having created the conditions underwhich the avoidable deaths occurred.

If for whatever reason at the start I had been told "take responsibility for yourself" and "no societal wide control measures would be taken, and no reason believe they should be or that no measures controlling human behaviour or social contact will ultimately save you or any other life" I wouldn't now be asking about whether its ok to ignore preventable deaths (note i'm not asking how many deaths are acceptable). Its a moral question about life itself. If a death is preventable should we do whatever we can to preserve that life?
There is no such thing as an acceptable number of deaths when we can prevent those deaths.

If a death is preventable should we do whatever we can to preserve that life?

But we don’t apply that principle to deaths from other factors.

We don’t lockdown hard every winter because of flu deaths.

We don’t ban meat eating, alcohol consumption, all pollution because of cancer deaths.

We don’t ban all cars from the roads because of RTA deaths.

Covid deaths are not any more ‘preventable’ than flu/cancer/heart disease/RTAs. We can take extraordinarily expensive measures (economically, psychologically, socially) to suppress them, but ultimately we have to question why we’d do this when we don’t do it for other causes of death?

@leafyygreens It's not good practise to put the onus on individuals when it should be guidance coming from PHE and the government.

You see I disagree with this. The government IS giving guidance. What they have done is to stop that guidance being law. I for one am very happy for that. Would you want healthy eating to be the law? Or no smoking or drinking? We all have to take responsibility for our own health. Now the vaccines are administered the law is now removed. Good.

You see I disagree with this. The government IS giving guidance. What they have done is to stop that guidance being law. I for one am very happy for that. Would you want healthy eating to be the law? Or no smoking or drinking? We all have to take responsibility for our own health. Now the vaccines are administered the law is now removed. Good

Well, we do have heavy restrictions and fiscal measures on smoking and booze, now adding sugar to these two.

Why do you think smoking or drinking was banned in public places? because (most) people aren't responsible and they are selfish, so whilst you applaud the lifting of restrictions, it wont work and they will be put back.

@MiniTheMinx There is no such thing as an acceptable number of deaths when we can prevent those deaths.

Yes there is. It's always got to be a balance. Every single car death is preventable if we ban cars - but we're not going to do that because of the repercussions. Every air crash is preventable if we ban air travel. Some people could be kept alive a few days/weeks longer if £x,xxx,xxx is spent on them but it's decided that a few extra days isn't worth spending huge sums of money. At governmental level, the decisions have to be made as to the balance of saving lives against the consequences, whether those consequences are cost, harm to others, harm to society, etc.