Do councils know what we dont

[3asAbird]

2major festive events cancelled that I assume boost both cities economy

www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/shambolic-decision-cancel-bath-christmas-6032017

metro.co.uk/2021/10/12/london-new-years-eve-fireworks-cancelled-for-second-year-in-a-row-15406333/?ito=facebook|social|metroukfacebook

I know media speculated October circuit break that's all gone quiet.

Just with 40k cases over 100 deaths a day we not far off jan.
Kids highest rates infections and these do leak into other age group.
7000+ in hospital
Flu and other viruses making a come back as well as covid.
What makes everyone so certain the NHS won't get overwhelmed.

Just worry after last autumn winter feels crazy out if control right now.

I think they forgot to tell our council too as the Christmas market is being advertised heavily, is planned to open in 3 weeks and they are already setting up for it! The council stopped holding bonfire night and New Years Eve events year ago due to lack of money anyway!
I suspect the reason why most of these events are being cancelled is not due to any secret insider knowledge but for any or all of these reasons- lack of staff, lack of funding, not being able to get insurance, not wanting to put money up front into an event that could be cancelled at the last minute, not being able to plan in sufficient time due to restrictions being in place earlier in the year and caution about having large numbers/crowding.
Yes there could be restrictions that prevent these things happening but I don't think anybody knows for sure whether there will or won't be.

It's been known for ages that the flu match may not be great and there's less natural immunity about.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/flu-significant-public-health-concern-21815243

It comes as England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam warned that influenza is a "significant public health concern" this winter - because our natural immunity has been lowered by two years of lockdowns, social distancing, increased hand-washing and mask-wearing.

On Friday, Professor Van-Tam said: "Not many people got flu last year because of Covid-19 restrictions, so there isn’t as much natural immunity in our communities as usual.

...

UK Health Security Agency chief executive Dr Jenny Harries also said there is lower immunity to flu this year.

Asked how worried the public should be about flu this winter, she told Sky’s Trevor Phillips On Sunday: “We should be worried about flu each winter. I think people still don’t realise it can be a fatal disease. Recent studies suggest that about 25% of us don’t actually understand that. On average, over the last five years, about 11,000 people have died with flu-related conditions.

“So I think it’s an uncertain winter ahead – that’s not a prediction it’s an uncertain feature – but we do know that flu cases have been lower in the previous year so immunity and the strain types are a little more uncertain.”

[quote SpittinKitten]Saw this the other day re risk

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/10/getting-flu-with-covid-makes-you-twice-as-likely-to-die-says-uk-health-chief[/quote]
It would be more surprising if having flu and Covid at the same time didn't mean you were at higher risk!

Ely fireworks cancelled too I've heard

It will be around costs. Nothing else.

@TheGrumpyGoat

Apparently not. This is a chart from the Scottish government website. Hospitalisations and Icu cases almost at the same level as October 2020 pre vaccines

Same level of hospitalisation but with far, far more cases. So the vaccine is doing exactly what it was intended to do.

But as people often point out, nowadays it is in fact the hospitalisations that matter, not cases.

Just because it now takes far more cases in the community before a hospital gets to 50 covid patients, doesn't make it any easier for them to deal with those 50 covid patients on top of everything else they should be doing.

It would be better if the vaccines meant that hospitals ended up with fewer covid cases, not the same number just coming out of a much larger number of community cases.

@SpittinKitten. @godmum56
Ooooh. I'm so stupid. I read the post as getting the flu and covid jabs together was more dangerous! I thought that was strange because that was the very setup they'd talked about in the covid centres. Doh, I must read better in future!!! Thanks.

We can't spend our vaccine bonus twice.

Either we use it to get as much of society as possible back to normal, knowing that even though that means loads more covid cases than last year, the hospitalisations shouldn't go higher than last year (but might be similar, as we seem to be heading towards right now).

Or, we use it to reduce hospitalisations for whatever covid cases we do have, and continue to try to keep community cases low. That's the only way we'll genuinely end up with many fewer people in hospital and catching up a bit with the backlogs.

We're somewhere in between those two at the moment, which is perhaps the best we can do. We do seem to be heading a bit more towards the first, though, which is worrying, because of the massive backlog of hospital treatment that needs hospitals not to have too many covid patients in them.

@Aposterhasnoname

What makes everyone so certain the NHS won't get overwhelmed

Don’t quote me on this, but I’m sure I heard something about some sort of vaccine that we have now. Apparently it’s really good at lowering the hospitalisation rate.

A small percent of a large number is still a large number if we let cases get out of control.

Hopefully this won’t happen but vaccines are supposed to be one tool in our armoury not a magic solution.

Speaking as someone who’s been very ill for a month now despite two vaccines.

Authorities are strapped for cash and this is an easy way to cut costs. Blame it on Covid. Move on.

There is a middle way where we voluntarily adopt as much covid-minimising behaviour as possible to keep society running fairly normally without too many legal restrictions, while trying not to increase cases further.

I think that's our best hope.

We are doing this more than you might sometimes think - if you see people in a shop and only 50% are wearing masks, there are also some people at home shopping on line instead.

Quite a few of us are changing our habits, at least in the short to medium term.

Also, even if we have vaccines, we still have a potential scenario where people can get covid + flu or other respiratory viruses as well, and then you would see some increase in mortality from where we are now. This is I think at the heart of concerns about a potentially very difficult winter.

@herecomesthsun

There is a middle way where we voluntarily adopt as much covid-minimising behaviour as possible to keep society running fairly normally without too many legal restrictions, while trying not to increase cases further.

I think that's our best hope.

We are doing this more than you might sometimes think - if you see people in a shop and only 50% are wearing masks, there are also some people at home shopping on line instead.

Quite a few of us are changing our habits, at least in the short to medium term.

I agree.

I don't think they 'know anything' given the current rate of infection is hardly a secret. I've not looked at figures but wonder if the high level of infection is based on lower levels of testing hence possibly a higher rate than January, given most people I speak to have gone back to 'normal' pre-COVID behaviour. There might be some variation in risk appetite by different LAs and companies after risk assessment - Goose Fair has been cancelled but Hull Fair went ahead.

Clinically, early indications appear to show simultaneous 'flu and COVID infections will have significant mortality, even in those vaccinated with COVID vaccines hence the push to vaccinate with 'flu vaccine (We've already vaccinated c2000) and we'll do third primaries and COVID boosters as soon as the stars align and we get deliveries of vaccine and adequate information from acute.

I'm surprised that the Bath market would be cancelled due to Eurpean traders not being able to get here. In my experience most of the traders are shops/companies from Bath and localish craftspeople and food producers. You don't get many of the traditional German type stallholders there.

I think the London assembly aren't even sure themselves. NYE fireworks are cancelled but winter wonderland is going ahead

@herecomesthsun

Also, even if we have vaccines, we still have a potential scenario where people can get covid + flu or other respiratory viruses as well, and then you would see some increase in mortality from where we are now. This is I think at the heart of concerns about a potentially very difficult winter.

They were saying on radio 4 this week that the evidence suggests that if a person gets flu and covid at the same time then mortality rates are higher. Makes perfect sense when you think about it. I've had the flu vaccine and will have the booster when it becomes available.

Cheltenham Council haven't got whatever memo (again) ... the literature festival has gone ahead with people stuffed into marquees like sardines, not many masks, we're back to normal apparently.

I've got a dead fly on my windowsill that knows more than my local council

I just love that - in fact I love it so much I might pinch it

Councils tend to be risk averse and need a high degree of accountability.
They're strapped for cash, worse than usual.
Staff may still be redeployed in other roles.
Planning and logistical difficulties.

It's more affordable for private events to take a punt and get going again. Even then, there's been quite a lag time between restrictions easing and being able to proceed with often a 2-3 lag time on viable leads. Relatively straightforward events like road running races haven't really got going before October and their staffing/ logistics aren't as complex as other events. They're pretty low risk too; outdoors, a short period of crowding at the start before rapidly spreading out, attracting younger, healthy, lower risk people. Parkruns were legally viable from March 29th, but land owner permissions (substantially, but not exclusively councils) were often reluctant to grant permission until social distancing was dropped in June July. It did seem ironic that after finally getting our junior parkrun restarted in mid-April after a slight delay from the minimum, there was already a funfair set up on our course! But hey, money talks and fit children don't bring any revenue.

My council's just allowed parents to walk children into the leisure centre rather than round the building to a poorly lit fire exit area... still can't sit in the building, so it looks like I'm in for another winter of driving 300m to sit in a stone cold car with a hot water and blankets in order to avoid idling the engine to swerve hypothermia. I miss the days of walking and sitting indoors!

Honestly, I don’t care. I am living life as normally as I can and encouraging my kids to do the same. If these things are on and I fancy going to them I shall go.
Life is too short for this miserable shit, had enough now!

My sister works in events and they are having huge issues with staffing larger events and getting stall holders from outside of the UK (a lot of whom usually trade at the Xmas markets) there is no conspiracy plenty of events are still going ahead as planned, London is planning an NYE event just not the usual fireworks.

The fireworks displays and Christmas market in my city have been cancelled due to the uncertainty around prospective coronavirus rates this winter (worded something like that.) Also customers wouldn’t get ‘value for money’ at the fireworks displays due to restrictions on numbers and extra staff.

I hadnt thought of hot water bottle for the car!!

We do a leisure centre run 3 x a week and ot does get boring. I couldnt work out if all leisure centres werent letting parents back in or if it was our club that had decided it was easier without parents!

@madisonbridges
Thanks for that, i have just managed to book one at boots for a couple of weeks time. I had tried all the local independents, but don't tend to go near a high street so hadn't tried a boots.

The independents were saying November onwards, normally I'm done and dusted by now.