Caring about health: "good"! Caring about the economy: "evil, selfish and greedy"!

[Warhertisuff]

I'm fed up of people, generally liberal types whose situation means they aren't especially impacted from any economic impact of lockdown and restrictions saying stuff like "Boris is only opening up the country as he only really cares about the economy so he and his fat cats can get richer", as though the impact of restrictions on society doesn't impact directly onto the economic welfare of millions!

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Boris, but this sanctimonious drivel winds me up.

There will be a huge financial and human cost whatever we do. It’s a pandemic. But there are less damaging ways to do things. Controlling COVID effectively isn’t all about lockdowns. Lockdowns aren’t necessary with effective test and trace in place, social distancing / masks and proper financial support for people who are sick or need to isolate. Our government screwed up.

@Elys3

There will be a huge financial and human cost whatever we do. It’s a pandemic. But there are less damaging ways to do things. Controlling COVID effectively isn’t all about lockdowns. Lockdowns aren’t necessary with effective test and trace in place, social distancing / masks and proper financial support for people who are sick or need to isolate. Our government screwed up.

People don’t realise how easy it is for test and trace to become difficult.

Look at very low cases in Sydney and lockdown. Still difficult.

Yes delta is more transmissible but cases are far lower than they were here by the time end of Feb say, rolled around.

Sage were anti lockdown back in March / April 2020. I clearly remember Valance and Whitty doing a press conference where they described the peak as being in June 2020 and their argument was that you can only lock down once and only for a short time so it was better to delay this one short lockdown to avoid suppressing the virus too much and making a larger second winter peak.
That was the logic at the time. We now know actually you can lock down more than once and for longer than two weeks but I guess we didn’t then.
I am also not sure we could have stopped flights from China back in January. Again that had never been done before. I remember a news item on London news from China town, as people had stopped eating there in February and the clear message was that the public was being very racist by not going out for a Chinese meal anymore.

If it had just been Alpha, we would have been laughing. Early and good vaccination programme, and then, as pp says, the track and trace would have been, although tricky, workable. The Delta thing threw a giant spanner in the works: you can’t effectively track, trace and keep tabs on millions of people.

I am still steaming that an immediate ban on travel to/from India wasn’t imposed the minute this variant appeared. But no doubt there would have been travellers and political opponents yelling that it was discriminatory. I blame Boris and people moving about the globe when we were in dodgy times.

I wonder if, god forbid, another variant pops up somewhere in the world, this time there will be an immediate cessation of flights. Too bad if you’re stuck there.

The trouble is there’s a lag and data collection

So often too late to stop it entering completely

And I completely agree with the unherd article. Labour have let down the working class with their harder longer lockdown rhetoric. I’ve been surprised at their positioning all the way through. I also thought they had come out against vaccine passports? It’s very disappointing if they are back in the fence again.
How can you be anti voter ID but pro vaccine passports? They affect the very same people

Yes even Labour find the harder lockdown position difficult to match with who it affects most

Same with when Starmer wanted to close nurseries

Health and the economy are two halves of the same coin. It is true that the physical health of the nation is a key determiner of the financial health. It is also true that the financial health of the economy is pivotal in the physical health of the economy.

I think it's fair enough if the op wants to highlight that only one half of that dichotomy has any resonance with the ongoing narrative of the left when it comes to covid - while the other half is view as a cynical selfish ploy to distract the conversation and line the pockets of the wealthy.

But - however you approach covid - it is true to say we have a pandemic crisis now and we need to keep our eyes up to mitigate a financial shitstorm later and both will have severe health outcomes, particularly for the poor.

It's not very helpful to view things in the black and the white. It's better to keep the conversation going without diminishing it to a slanging match and levelling accusations of selfishness or being a thicko

I don't think stopping flights makes a blind bit of difference. It didn't even keep Delta out in Australia. Our cases are dropping, we'll be glad of getting it out the way when for instance Germany is getting humped in autumn/winter.