Getting through the winter

[herecomesthsun]

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boris-johnson-publish-covid-blueprint-difficult-winter

To be honest, I'd be really happy with any of this if it keeps the kids in school and we don't have to have any sort of lockdown again.

"Boris Johnson is set to publish a Covid blueprint to prepare for a “difficult time” this winter, with jabs for younger teenagers, a booster programme, flu shots and vaccine passports all expected to be part of the measures.

Johnson is likely to strike a more cautious note than he has done in recent months, warning the public to continue being careful as cases are rising – with more than 8,000 Covid patients in hospital in the UK despite the vaccination programme.

The government is looking to extend its emergency Covid powers – ... as a last resort.

No 10 is hoping the combination of measures to be announced next week will head off the need for further draconian lockdowns after some scientists warned that a “firebreak” could be needed this autumn."

Ah @Peteycat it’s been hard for the older generations.

My FIL refused to leave the house last year. But they’ve just booked a holiday abroad. It’s so nice they can all get back on enjoying life

@Delatron so glad to hear that. I hope they have a great time. My older family members are running round garden centres and buses it's brilliant!

@herecomesthsun what will be different next winter do you think? Is it just this winter you want restrictions to continue?

I do agree with a booster program. That’s pretty much it.
We need to work out how to improve the NHS now, that’s more of a sensible strategy than forcing people to work from home when they don’t want to.

@Delatron

I don't think I said exactly that I wanted restrictions to continue this winter?

I think that being intelligent and sensible about using masks in the "3Cs" situations will continue to be the wisest option. There is a line of thought that calling upon people to exercise individual responsibility about this is more effective than legally mandating; but the same scientific principles behind controlling spread apply.

As time goes by, the pressure on society will ease and it may well not be necessary to have the same level of caution, but a "very difficult winter" is expected.

So I am hoping things will be better next year (though we can't know for sure). I'm also happy to remain on the cautious side of things because of our risk profile as a family, though we are still enjoying life.

@GoldenOmber no because that's not how science or analysis works

@Delatron

It’s the doommongers that have their heads in the clouds and are in denial that life will go back to normal and is going back to normal (London yesterday was fantastically busy). They think they can scare people by talking about variants and the virus becoming more serious for children. Links/science/evidence please?

Zero Covid is not an option anymore. Even suppressing the virus isn’t an option. Unless you fancy doing that forever.

The vaccines are working to reduce deaths.
There’s some terrified people on here who can’t face that we are working towards living with the virus. Maybe they are the ones who should go on the good news thread. Or work out how they are going to live their lives going forward without being bogged down by fear.

London is unbelievably busy these days. It’s good to see.

I’m ok with boosters and vaccine choice lower ages too

But really pleased about repealed parts of emergency act

I’m so sorry pps children are so poorly. In the interest of balance, mine have experienced Covid as more of a mild flu combined with tonsillitis. Many children at school have had absolutely no symptoms whatsoever.

I can’t find anything in the media about wfh continuing. Can anyone point me in the direction? I could really do with wfh for a bit longer!!

Personally, I'd say I am feeling optimistic overall about where we are (thanks to the vaccines which are better than we could possibly have hoped for).

We really can get through this; it's a question of how to move forwards constructively.

It's so different this year to last year, we know that there are strategies that work, we have mostly been vaccinated, we have boosters etc.

It's very heartening.

Well I hope masks are indeed the holy grail so many on here believe them to be then.

I still don’t see what will be difficult next winter, or the winter after. Hopefully we’ll have better treatments but I think people need to change their mindset now. Covid really isn’t the only disease out there

Masks aren't a magic answer; but they are thought to decrease spread by 20-20%. If we are trying to control the spread of a very infectious variant then that could be quite useful, added into everything else.

It seems we need a combination of measures to manage the situation effectively.

We all want to avoid lockdowns/ school closures etc and we do have quite high cases going into the winter already, so as far as I'm concerned anything that helps, I'm happy to do (and it will protect me as well a bit if I use a FFP2).

What would be different next winter?

Well, we will have more of a plan in place with more research and more knowledge about boosters and how to protect vulnerable people in particular more effectively.

Any vulnerable kids in secondary school will have been vaccinated, which will be an immense boon for any affected families.

There will hopefully be less susceptibility in the community.

Depending what happens with flu & RSV this year we may be in a better position going forwards.

Fingers crossed re not having a variant of concern.

And we also presumably would have a more informed plan for any future pandemic.

sorry that should be 20-25%. Although, I wonder what the figure would be if a significant number of people were wearing FFP2s? Germany has people wearing more protective masks (and I bet there will be some research done there but I can't remember seeing recent figures & will keep an eye out).

[quote minatrina]@GoldenOmber no because that's not how science or analysis works[/quote]
Science usually involves being prepared to revise your ideas in the face of evidence.

Right now, Scotland has more restrictions than England. If Scotland had less than half the cases England does, then probably most people would be saying: look, this is evidence that Scotland’s approach works much better than England’s to keep cases down. It’s a bit harder to say that when the opposite is true and it’s Scotland that has over double England’s case rate.

Scotland has less population immunity than England due to locking down harder and for longer in previous waves. This is maybe why our cases are so high now. Masks and WFH haven’t done much to stop them getting this high, because masks and WFH don’t make a massive amount of difference on their own. Saying “ah but they HAVE worked because I bet cases would be even higher without” is not really rigorous analysis.

True @GoldenOmber

Look @herecomesthsun if you think that masks will make all the difference this winter then great.

I wouldn’t object massively to masks being brought back but I really don’t think they are as protective or make as much of an impact as people think. I wouldn’t support masks in schools.

So I’m not sure what the argument is here. You want masks back. Knock yourselves out.

Example of mask rules in Scotland:

I can, right now, walk into a pub with a mask on, order a drink with a mask on, then take my mask off and stand in that exact same spot drinking it. Or I could put the mask back on to walk to a table 10ft away, then sit down at that table in a really crowded room with people all around me for the next six hours with mask off.

At a nightclub, I’d need a mask on to enter and to order a drink. But I could keep it off if I had a drink in my hand, and I could dance all night without it.

At a wedding, I would need a mask on while sitting through a 30-minute church service. But I could take it off for a reception that lasted the rest of the day, including dancing, drinking, and wandering round hugging people so long as I had a drink in my hand.

Expecting masks to do much to cut down spread in those situations is beyond optimistic. When we have opened up as much of society as we have, the effect of masks is less than it would have been before.

@GoldenOmber ...and you think what you've just said constitutes rigorous analysis?

I don't need to talk about Scotland versus England to know that masks are an effective tool to reduce disease spread. There's multiple controlled, peer-reviewed studies that show this. You can find them quite easily on google.

I think people just won't do it.
I've had two jabs. I've had covid a few months ago (before my jabs). Pretty much everyone I know is in the same position. Why would we bother with all this guff again?

Also the flu issue has been caused by lockdown and social distancing. Further lockdowns aren't going to solve that problem, at some point we will have to have a normal winter and then loads of people will get flu.

90% of adults (16+) have been vaccinated.
If the entire population was adults, that would be 6 million unvaccinated adults (10% of 60 million population), but obviously the entire population isn't adults. They are either including children in the "unvaccinated" number, in which case its more than 6 million, or not including children in which case it must be fewer.

[quote minatrina]@GoldenOmber ...and you think what you've just said constitutes rigorous analysis?

I don't need to talk about Scotland versus England to know that masks are an effective tool to reduce disease spread. There's multiple controlled, peer-reviewed studies that show this. You can find them quite easily on google. [/quote]
I’m not trying to do ‘rigorous analysis’. I’m saying that masks haven’t been a very effective tool to reduce spread in the conditions we have in Scotland. We do not have reduced spread in Scotland, we have significantly increased spread. Detected cases are now about 300% higher than they were in our January peak.

If you really have seen some peer-reviewed research showing considerable benefits of masks on community transmission in the conditions we use them in Scotland, do please share because I don’t think there are any.

Although I’m not sure that “I don’t care that it doesn’t work in practice because I’m sure it works in theory” is all that convincing a claim, tbh.

For comparison, if the whole of the UK ended up with 3x the January peak like we have, that would be about 240,000 daily cases.

Maybe (hopefully?) hospitals could cope with that post-vaccines. But I don’t think most of us would consider 240,000 cases a day to be an example of effectively reduced spread.

@GoldenOmber

For comparison, if the whole of the UK ended up with 3x the January peak like we have, that would be about 240,000 daily cases.

Maybe (hopefully?) hospitals could cope with that post-vaccines. But I don’t think most of us would consider 240,000 cases a day to be an example of effectively reduced spread.

Blimey. I suppose the lower population and figures leads people to over look this.

Yes, and our January peak was lower than England’s too, which I think is one big reason we’re seeing so many cases now.

Really do hope they start significantly dropping soon because it’s getting a bit worrying now.

Another illustration of just how mad our cases are here in Scotland. That first peak on the left is the October one, where they brought in a 16-day ‘circuit breaker’ that stayed for months; then the one after is the January alpha wave, where we had more people dying than in the first lockdown. Those were big case numbers back then. Compared to the numbers in the two most recent waves on the right, though…

I don't need to talk about Scotland versus England to know that masks are an effective tool to reduce disease spread

But i bet you would be happy to do so if the case numbers were reversed.