Will this level of cases now just be acceptable?

[Tuba437]

Just having a think to myself. We're now at around 30k cases a day in general. The 7 day average daily deaths is about 89 (this was for around 45-50k cases a day). We can assume that I a month or so deaths will be at around 60 a day.

Over a year that works out at about 21k worth of deaths. Will this just be the acceptable number. We know the vaccine doesn't stop the spread so I highly doubt were ever just going to get down to sub 5k cases a day again.

21k is considered a very mild flu death rate for the year. We have a new virus around now so more deaths a year are going to be a thing whether we like it or not.

I also think red list countries should only be for countries with worrying variants. If I don't have to isolate if my wife tests positive (just daily testing) then why on earth would I have to spend 1500 on a government hotel to quarantine as I've been to a country with a lower covid rate than us?

Sorry about the rant.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@IcedPurple

‘And with all that, there are traffic accidents all the time.’

You are entirely missing the point here.

With sensible restrictions, people will die of COVID. And, no, shutting down society is not worth it to save these lives.

Are you an advocate of free-for-all driving, though? More a Mad Max world where everyone makes their own risk assessment and, if an old person can’t dodge the speeding car, tough luck…,

As I said in an earlier post, it is about the correct compromise point between providing enough safety vs allowing enough life.

Until Science (and natural immunity) conquers COVID we cannot be 100% safe or 100% ‘free’.[/quote]
We can live as we are which means not doing what started this conversation.

There is no requirement to be ‘sensible’ and sit outside etc

Those people who choose it can of course but they will have to accept they get no say for anyone else.

Feeling dizzy I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm so sorry for your children. I truly hope they can have some sort of normality going forward. Sounds like you are an amazing mum and doing what's best for them. Xxx

@MarshaBradyo,

The problem is the single biggest intervention to reduce transmission is shutting schools.

If we are stable now with no school, unless they do other interventions, we will be in trouble when schools open.

Oh my goodness. Not people bleating about shutting schools again. Honestly what are you thinking? Well thankfully the government have said that won't happen again.

Is there honestly still people who think that it's OK to halt education for long periods of time? I bet you don't have school age kids do you?!

Do you like lockdowns the reluctant phoenix?

@GoldenOmber

it is about the correct compromise point between providing enough safety vs allowing enough life.

This would require, though, that we remember one person's 'enough life' looks very different to someone else's. Quite a lot of people in our society seem content to define 'sensible measures' as 'measures that let us do the things I want to do but not the things I don't.'

There was a thread on here a while back by a poster who was going to a wedding and felt that singing in the church should be banned. Not all the other parts of the wedding, which she was happy to do despite the risk of spreading covid. Just the one bit that she wasn't that fussed about anyway. I mean, come on.

Yeah, that thread was incredibly telling. Very good example of the prioritise the things I like, fuck all the other stuff mentality that's been quite prevalent during the pandemic. People can be very reluctant to identify and accept the existence of this mentality, though.

@Peteycat,

Are you hard of reading?!

Where have I suggested closing schools?

@FloFloFloFloFlo

Aye, as long as you aren’t one of the unlucky ‘healthy’ ones eh?

Well if you are elderly you have to die of something. And covid is better than dementia.

As for younger vulnerable people - they are also vulnerable to flu, norovirus, the common cold and we don't shut down for those. I know it's rubbish if you eg have had cancer and your immune system is trashed, I can't even begin to imagine what that is like, but do you really expect everyone else to give up their lives in perpetuity?

And yes, we do need to do something about air pollution. Banning SUVs, not increasing train fares and investing billions in cycle paths would be a good way to go.

If we are stable now with no school, unless they do other interventions, we will be in trouble when schools open

I disagree as adults are vaccinated (and 16-17 year olds will have had at least one dose).

If everyone is vaccinated they don't need to worry too much about their kids catching it (and presumably most kids have already been exposed to it) because even if they get it it won't be much worse than a cold in the vast majority of cases.

@igelkott2021,

The problem is a small percentage of children are hospitalised and, also, they can give it to their parents and grandparents. Again, vaccinations make it 85% less likely that they will catch it or be hospitalised.

But tiny percentages of very large numbers could still overwhelm our hospital system.

It is finely balanced. The lower down the ages they go in vaccinations, the less likely another lockdown (or similar).

You are entirely missing the point here.

I'm not missing the point at all. You're just trying to make it about something that it was not.

I was responding to a poster chastising me for 'putting others at risk' by maybe dining indoors, and asked (without a reply) if that poster had ever done something which might theoretically put unknown others at risk. If they have ever driven a car, something I've never done, then clearly they have.

That was the point, and I'm not missing it.

But tiny percentages of very large numbers could still overwhelm our hospital system. This is the thing we have yet to determine, and could definitely go either way.

We used to be able to confidently estimate that if 10,000 people caught Covid, x number would be hospitalised, y number would die. The vaccine has massively changed those numbers but we do not know yet what x and y will be in say November or January, as vaccination rates rise, vaccine immunity wanes (possibly) and with winter behaviours.

I think all the unknown is making people twitchy. Will be interesting to see Scotland's numbers after three weeks in school, that will give some indication, although they have kept some mitigations.

@TheKeatingFive

No, you’re getting really obtuse for no reason.

Nope. My point’s perfectly valid. You just can’t/won’t see it because it doesn’t suit your agenda.

.
Cancer is totally different, by virtue of not being transmissible

Yes it’s different on that score. It’s not different in that it’s also a disease we could take extraordinary measures to prevent deaths if we wanted to.

not being a public health issue.

Seriously?

Could people be clear about what aspect of my argument they object to? Do they disagree that the list I posted would help prevent many cancer deaths? Or do they believe that it isn’t appropriate to try to save 150,000 deaths a year because cancer isn’t classified as a pandemic? I’m very interested in this response.

Look I’m not disagreeing that cancer is a major killer. I can’t find your ‘list’ sadly.

All I’m saying is, I responded to your comment about ‘would we have this response for cancer’ - well no. Because cancer is not an infectious disease on pandemic scale and the only way to try and manage it is via mass isolation to prevent spread and protect the services that are required to run (health, food, utilities etc)

It’s a different response. The response to covid being extended via lock down measures is harming cancer patients and going to cause more cancer cases and fatalities by proxy.

There isn’t a right answer, my response is that’s it’s not comparable.

However, what I do find similarities in your argument with, is that we never had funds for xyz, but found xxx million to spend on an app or so and so’s mate who’s a pub landlord getting a PPE contract. That’s all valid misuse of funds / purpose.

I just hope we all come out ok on the other side

@IcedPurple

You are entirely missing the point here.

I'm not missing the point at all. You're just trying to make it about something that it was not.

I was responding to a poster chastising me for 'putting others at risk' by maybe dining indoors, and asked (without a reply) if that poster had ever done something which might theoretically put unknown others at risk. If they have ever driven a car, something I've never done, then clearly they have.

That was the point, and I'm not missing it.

Ok I just searched the thread and you are the only person using the phrase "putting others at risk". Maybe you dreamt that?

Back to the cancer thing.

I suggest that people who don't understand why cancer is dealt with differently to a viral pandemic do some reading about Public Health - if they are serious about that and not just trying to wind people up for the sake of it.

The issue around acute and chronic illness and risks to society are key.

Happy to discuss further if it seems like we can have a rational discussion about it. However, I'm not sure that this format & this thread really lends itself to a drawn out discussion of Public Health issues?

@Peteycat

No the above question. I think personally that person eating outdoors is virtue signalling and struggling to connect with reality.

No not virtue signalling.

Just getting on with doing what we can to enjoy life in this situation.

Why did it upset you so much?

@TheKeatingFive

Read some Public Health literature, maybe you could fathom it more

You’re just dodging the point now.

I absolutely accept that a different approach was required in the eye of the storm, last spring. But now, when covid is endemic, the distinction you’re trying to make makes little sense.

So without dodging questions, trying to get off on technicalities with regards to public health, answer me this … what justification is there for taking extreme measures to minimise covid deaths, but not cancer ones?

Ah right.

No not dodging any point.

So, cancer is a chronic health issue, or rather a set of issues, a collection of illnesses, with different causes, that are linked to behaviours and situations that develop over years.

A new viral pandemic is a new health emergency, where there can be as we know tens of thousands of deaths (and in fact millions worldwide) and rapid action can save many many lives.

They are very different in their development, treatment and management.

(Do you want me to go on? I don't want to bore you)

I have actually done a fair bit of reading about public health, albeit in the pre-covid days. It was heavy on education and resources and all the factors in people’s lives that influence their health, and looking at a broader model of ‘health’ than clinical care for any single disease or condition.

But regardless, I don’t think people are failing to understand why cancer is dealt with differently to an infectious disease. I think they’re disagreeing with you on whether we should see it as our moral duty to prevent one type of death but not another, when we could prevent both.

Maybe you choosing to eat indoors in a restaurant marginally raises my chance of contracting covid and getting ill from it. And maybe you driving rather than walking marginally increases my chance of getting ill from air pollution. Yes one is infectious and the other not, but either way, your actions have an impact on other people, your actions could potentially make other people ill. So why is not eating indoors more morally important than not driving?

I don't think eating outdoors is morally important.

I do think it reduces your chance of getting covid.

Why would you possibly want to object to that?

And if you prefer to walk rather than drive, then that's great too.

I don't see any problem with doing both?

As regards cancer, I think that as a society it would make a lot of sense to put more resources into healthcare.

I would very strongly support that.

It would also be great to look further at public health measures that would reduce the incidence of different sorts of cancers.

Banning driving, as was suggested elsewhere, would be a bit counterproductive even in the management of cancer.

I'm not sure whether anyone has pointed this out yet, but patients very often use cars or buses to get to appointments. If they are seen at home, nurses and doctors will use cars to visit them. Would this ban on driving include ambulances? Would the proposed ban on flying include helicopters bringing patients to A and E? How do you imagine doctors and nurses get to work? A lot of hospitals have sold off their hospital accommodation, and most staff commute, very very often by car.

So you would have a situation where the patients couldn't get to see the doctors and the nurses couldn't get into work etc.

You would also have major problems with pharmacies and drug delivery.

Not to mention fire services, police services, food deliveries, post, road maintenance.

I mean, we didn't use to be so very dependent on motorised transport to organise healthcare, but things have moved on a lot in the past 200 years.

So it's a good thought, and it would be great to reduce air pollution by reducing car movement, but it's a question of seeing what is practical and finding creative ways around logistical problems.

In a small way, living life in a pandemic presents some similar logistical issues, finding new ways to do things, ways around problems.

I think we need to do both. But a greater emphasis on health issues and understanding of underlying causes of cancer would be wonderful.

@Peteycat yeah labels like Lockdown Lover for anyone who believed restrictions were necessary for example.
For me it isn't so much people who deny COVID or anti vaxxers who are the issue as it is obvious.
I think the constant low level With Covid or of COVID and the I had worse colds and I am ECV etc. The low level drip drip minimising.

Why would you possibly want to object to that?

Object to eating outdoors? I don’t. Eat every meal outdoors if that’s what makes you happy.

I do object to your suggestion that people not choosing to do this are people who don’t care about infecting others, whereas your choice means that you do care about infecting others.

I don’t drive at all. I don’t pretend that this means I care about reducing illness due to air pollution whereas a driver doesn’t care either way. (I could, though, I suppose? What’s the case against?)

Ok I just searched the thread and you are the only person using the phrase "putting others at risk". Maybe you dreamt that?

Are you that desperate to score points with me that you trawled back through the thread? No riverside gazebos where you could be enjoying a 'safe' dinner?

Here - and I quote - is the post, from @CryingAtTheDiscotheque, to which I was responding:

Well at least you acknowledge that your decisions inevitably involve a risk to others. Do you also acknowledge that other people's assessment of the magnitude of the risk that you pose to them may differ?

So no, I don't think that I did 'dream' it.

@IcedPurple I used control + F

you should learn how to use quotes properly.

Making up quotations to prove a point is, well, usually a sign that your argument position isn't very good.

@GoldenOmber

Why would you possibly want to object to that?

Object to eating outdoors? I don’t. Eat every meal outdoors if that’s what makes you happy.

I do object to your suggestion that people not choosing to do this are people who don’t care about infecting others, whereas your choice means that you do care about infecting others.

I don’t drive at all. I don’t pretend that this means I care about reducing illness due to air pollution whereas a driver doesn’t care either way. (I could, though, I suppose? What’s the case against?)

I said -

People who "want less infection to be circulating" will continue to do these things.

People who "don't think this would affect them much and don't care about infecting others" will be less bothered?

But isn't that actually true?

You can't really have it both ways and say that you aren't bothered about the risks with covid, you don't see the need to take so many precautions - but you are bothered about other people being infected?

Don't you see that is a bit inconsistent?

(And this is a practical point, not a moral one. Let's assume like Socrates that if you understood there to be a risk and a real consequence to a choice of action, you'd pursue it)

People are mostly behaving according to their own perception of their risk level though.

Even if it’s dressed up as I care more it’s really I’d like other people to do this too for me.

I do know that if I sit inside in a restaurant, as we did last night too chilly, that the other people who had chosen to do the same didn’t worry about the risk either. Otherwise they’d sit outside. So no one should feel bad about it.

At this point anyone trying to convince others to do the same as them by talking about who cares and who doesn’t should probably let it go.