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.

@TheKeatingFive

The only comparable is illness requiring medical care.

Nope. They are both illnesses that we can drastically reduce the death count of by taking extraordinary measures. Or do you deny that the list I posted upthread would reduce cancer deaths if implemented?

The fact that extreme measures would be taken in different circumstances (pandemic versus non pandemic) doesn’t negate my point. Or are you suggesting that 150,000 cancers deaths a year are somehow less tragic or less worthy of being tackled because it’s not a pandemic situation?

No, you’re getting really obtuse for no reason. The extraordinary lengths to cure cancer look nothing like lock down so it’s not comparative in that sense. That’s it. Cancer research is funded, financed, etc. Policies are brought in to prevent it.

Cancer is totally different, by virtue of not being transmissible, not either doubling or halving, and not being a public health issue.

One way of downplaying Covid is to point at something else bad to distract, but it is usually irrelevant.

@Hellotoallmyfans

For people saying hospitals arent overwhelmed… Mine has had 15-20 hours A&E wait recently

This is down to isolations, they need to scrap it now. My db (nhs worker) is currently isolating for ten days because someone he lives with has tested positive. Loads of hospital staff off even though they don't have it. They will do away with testing soon probably - it's causing more problems than it's solving.
Someone on the covid board mentioned it would be very interesting to see how many people test in public v private sector. Don't underestimate how many people out there will be thoroughly enjoying their fully paid time at home (my db included).

I really hope you are right OP and that the government stick to their plan of no more lockdowns.

And no my dcs won't be getting vaxxed either. Both dh and I have had it and have both been very ill, dh has never been this ill in the 20 years I've known him. Its possibly nothing to do with the vaccine but I'm not risking it.

It's down to sheer weight of patients needing input and too many covid patients / outbreaks displacing space in my hospital. Lack of staff is an additional worry.

All this 'we need to get on with things / hospitals aren't over run / other conditions need treating' - it's all false and it's all inter linked. While covid patients exist, all aspects of the NHS suffers. While anti covid measures are needed like lockdowns, all aspects of the NHS suffers. You lose either way. We need a massive increase in infrastructure and staff to cope with this 'new normal' but that will never happen.

Plenty of people do want to pretend it doesn't exist, or that it is no longer a threat. They want to stop testing, and stop isolating, and stop counting infections and deaths. Some of these people are in the governing party.

So you have to need to want mass testing, mandatory isolation and daily reporting of case numbers to believe an illness exists? Right

This thread from NHS staff is interesting about pressures www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4324845-any-other-nhsers-feel-like-weird-groundhog-day-despite-life-resuming-outside

There are media articles about how bad things are, but it feels people have got their heads in the sand.

There is no good reason, in public health terms, to prematurely get rid of testing, isolating cases and counting, so yes, IMO, the reasons for doing so are ideological not scientific @Warhertisuff

I also don't agree with the 'minimal indoor mixing because it's summer' justification. Last January there was minimal indoor mixing- it was illegal, hospitality and beauty were shut, schools were shut. I would argue there is unlikely to be more people indoors together at one time than when England reached the final of the Euros, I think it broke viewing records, and we saw cases peak at around 60k. It was worrying but quickly dropped back down again. We could possibly see another small peak in September, but I doubt the collective children will have a bigger impact than the Euros which was most adults + most children.

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.

@lannistunut but the point is and people like you never respond with a decent answer. When do you want to stop isolating and counting cases etc. Covid isn't going away. The vaccine doesn't prevent transmission. If you honestly believe there will be a right time to stop all the above then please enlighten me when you think that will be?

Wowzers - I think that is somewhat stupid. Perhaps the fact is we will have to carry on isolating and counting cases FOREVER because it's a contagious disease. I work as a HCP and can tell you there are quite a few contagious diseases that have to be counted, screened for etc etc all the time. That's how it is -

Look up MRSA, Hep B, Hep C, HIV, tuberculosis, to name but a few.

@parityj. What can be done to prevent cancer? Lots of things. Ban pesticide use on food crops. Educate people about avoiding junk food and obesity. Phase out carcinogenic chemicals eg plastics. Cancer has gone from a rare disease in my childhood to common and yet I see no political will to address and eliminate the environmental factors that cause the vast majority of cancers. Instead everyone is obsessing about a virus that kills a tiny proportion of those it infects. Covid is serious for a few but we need to regain a sense of proportion and start getting serious about the disease — cancer — that affects 1 in 3 people and kills many.

not being a public health issue yes this was clumsily worded, but what I mean is that your likelihood of cancer does not have any bearing on my likelihood of cancer. The environmental causes of cancer and the personal causes of cancer can of course be tackled, but the complexity and length of time between envirnmental changes and rates mean cancer is not something where we have outbreaks. Therefore we would not be likely to tackle cancer by e.g. going door to door with a public health team and testing everyone in one go - the tests would deliver vast numbers of false positives which wold do more harm than good.

@TheKeatingFive

And I say that as someone who currently has Covid.

I hope you’re doing ok wax

Thank you! Just saw this. I'm OK, was pretty much asymptomatic until this morning, have woken up with cold-like symptoms. I'm on my second isolation day but probably had Covid for 5 or 6 days as I believe I caught it from a work colleague.

But part of the reason the NHS is very busy right now is the backlog of non-covid things that have built up over the past 18 months: elective surgeries, conditions which are now more severe because people didn’t get it treated earlier, illnesses like RSV surging outside their normal season because lockdowns meant they didn’t spread in winter.

If we’re going to say we need to keep restrictions in place any time the NHS is busy, but those restrictions then cause the NHS to be more busy as soon as they’re lifted, we will be here forever.

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.

I don't believe it is an either/or. I would be interested in many of the mesaures you suggested, personally, but I don't think it has any bearing on the discussion about what is right/wrong with regards to Covid. Also where measures are personal, e.g. not eating processed meat, if you choose to increase your chance of cancer you do not increase my chances of cancer. With Covid, if you increase your chance of Covid you also increase mine. These things have a bearing on the ethics of various courses of action. It was, IMO, ethical to mandate masks in shops. It would not be thical to mandate lentils instead of sausages. We have found this compromise by banning smoking in many places but allwoing it in the home (leave aside the argument around children/secondhand smoke which has always been hard to resolve due to ethical tensions).

My view of your argument, which may be incorrect, is that you are saying 'more people die from cancer, so Covid should be ignored now'.

Clearly Covid was more urgent than cancer, as it killed c.150k people in a single year even with the most extraordinary measures in place to try to stop it.

I am not sure how ignoring Covid going forwards helps anyone with cancer anyway, either in terms of accessing treatment or, for those undergoing cancer treatment and therefore vulnerable, avoiding Covid itself. The costs of Covid will be a choice between paying for prevention or paying for treatment. I would prefer to pay for prevention becauce it is more rational to do that, have better outcomes and and will be cheaper in the long run. My personal view is that acting as though it is 'over' rather than 'vastly improved' is foolish.

My view of your argument, which may be incorrect, is that you are saying 'more people die from cancer, so Covid should be ignored now'

I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that we don’t debate ‘acceptable’ levels of cancer deaths with the extreme measures that could be taken to prevent them, even though the deaths from cancer are much higher than the level of covid deaths being debate here. We never did it with flu either.

This is an entirely covid specific development in how we talk about health. Which supports a conclusion that covid deaths are more significant than others somehow.

Also where measures are personal, e.g. not eating processed meat, if you choose to increase your chance of cancer you do not increase my chances of cancer. With Covid, if you increase your chance of Covid you also increase mine.

Many of the measures I suggested are collective. Banning of cars to reduce air pollution. Banning of plastics, pesticides. Increasing tax loads to pay for drugs. And even the personalised ones would be much more effective if simply banned rather than left to personal discretion.

I think we need to focus on death rate and whether hospitals are busier than usual (although the media say hospitals are “overwhelmed” every single winter) rather than testing people who do not have symptoms. Although most people who die within 28 days of testing positive already have deadly underlying medical conditions. Our test rate is rather high compared to other countries.

There has been too much disruption to our lives - our mental health, our finances, schools etc. We need to go back to normal now with zero restrictions on our freedom.

@GoldenOmber

But part of the reason the NHS is very busy right now is the backlog of non-covid things that have built up over the past 18 months: elective surgeries, conditions which are now more severe because people didn’t get it treated earlier, illnesses like RSV surging outside their normal season because lockdowns meant they didn’t spread in winter.

If we’re going to say we need to keep restrictions in place any time the NHS is busy, but those restrictions then cause the NHS to be more busy as soon as they’re lifted, we will be here forever.

I agree. It seems that the government and NHS only care about Covid. People have died or had their condition deteriorate or missed diagnoses because the NHS prioritises Covid.

I would prefer to treat flu/cancer deaths more like covid, rather than treat covid deaths more like flu/cancer, so I agree there should be more attention given to 'acceptable' death levels from a variety of causes.

Perhaps covid will start to change the midset that we can't do anything about illnesses.

I would prefer to treat flu/cancer deaths more like covid, rather than treat covid deaths more like flu/cancer, so I agree there should be more attention given to 'acceptable' death levels from a variety of causes.

Which of my measures do you support implementing then?

People have to die of something. The majority of these cases are older people, who would sadly have died in these past 18 months of something else. There have always been tragic cases of young, fit and healthy people unusually dying of an illness.
I'm not saying this isn't sad and tragic and many lives have been affected. However, we've done all we can for the moment - with vaccines and all the social distancing etc. Covid is here to stay, as an endemic illness.
If we continue to apply restrictions, then the number of deaths will be transferred to other causes of death, including as a result of poor mental health and the economic downfall.
Where will we be in 10/20/30 years time if we continue to ruin education and close businesses?

@TheKeatingFive

Your list was obviously a very simplistic set of ideas used for rhetorical emphasis so I am not sure it really warrants much detailed consideration. But the point you make about how much we could potentially acheive was a good one and I personally would be happy to look at other diseases in that way, maybe that will be a positive to come out of covid.

The majority of these cases are older people, who would sadly have died in these past 18 months of something else.

This is a common misunderstanding of the data - once someone is 80, they still have the likelihood of a resonable number of years left to live. The average age of people dying from covid being high does not equate to them not having lost many years of life, so many of them would have lived much longer than 18 months. Johnson himself misunderstood this (whether deliberately or not is unclear).

HNRTT but are your annualised numbers based on the baseline of numbers less than those currently reported during the UK Summer before English schools have returned and don't take account of the clinical effects of patients with COVID plus 'flu infections together over Winter? I think it might be more than just what constitutes a 'mild 'flu season' that you might need to reconsider.

Your list was obviously a very simplistic set of ideas used for rhetorical emphasis so I am not sure it really warrants much detailed consideration.

Well, what concrete measures do you suggest then? You have to put forward some, otherwise I’d dismiss your position on cancer deaths as empty words.

Haven’t rtft but 21k does sound similar to some discussions based on what we have for flu already

It may be higher now before winter anyway to allow for flu to increase - capacity that is