Plan B

[edisonbulb]

Are they nudging us to plan B with the presser on Sunday the articles in the papers the headlines on Sky and BBC being the worst in Europe.

I can't see another lockdown happening but masks easy fix and work from home well for some.

The vaccine reduces the risk of catching Covid by between 65% and 80% and if you're one of the unfortunate people to be vaccinated but infected, then you're again about 65% less likely to need hospitalisation with Covid.

The anti-vaxxers tend to use the reductive "but they said the vaccine would stop everyone getting Covid and it hasn't so it doesn't work" trope. Thankfully, more intelligent people understand that that's not what vaccines do. It would be lovely, to be sure, but we're a way off one that good just yet. Still, the ones we've got aren't half doing a good job.

@butterflyze

I love the way people always come out with: "Work from home then" as if that will solve everything.

Who, exactly? All the key workers whose jobs require their physical presence to get the work done and keep the country running?

It is always the people who wfh that come out with that as well. The ones tucked away not having to face unmitigated transmission.

It’s odd.

@OldScrappyAndHungry no idea how on earth you drew that conclusion
I was comparing France with the U.K. to demonstrate that despite the case difference the hospitalisations are similar. Nothing to do with vaccine bashing, more trying to demonstrate that cases maybe don’t matter as much

Wfh isn’t always wanted.

Loads of people are sick of it and won’t welcome it if it comes back.

@MarshaBradyo I'd take wfh if it prevent restrictions on socialising or a lockdown though!

At this point many don’t care about the virus anyway

They’ve already had it. It’s increased restrictions that are the issue.

I don’t care about the virus. It’s ripped through our school. I care about my son having unrestricted access to Uni after two years of hell.

However, I can see if Aunt Mavis can’t get to hospital for her cancer treatment because the NHS are rammed because of prolifically high Covid cases. We are going back into restrictions.

I don’t understand why they wait until crisis post , every single time.

@Itisasecret

I don’t care about the virus. It’s ripped through our school. I care about my son having unrestricted access to Uni after two years of hell.

However, I can see if Aunt Mavis can’t get to hospital for her cancer treatment because the NHS are rammed because of prolifically high Covid cases. We are going back into restrictions.

I don’t understand why they wait until crisis post , every single time.

I agree why wait until its too late. Already warning signs about wait times at A and E.m and yes its apparently the same every year. So we don't need the extra pressure.

I don’t understand why almost 2 years into this thing they haven’t bolstered the nhs ready for another winter season

If we get to the stage where hospitals are inundated and we need to go into lockdown, then what’s the point of vaccine/health passports?

I honestly don’t see the point as vaccinated people are still ending up in hospitals.

Work from home?

This clueless government have just spent months bullying everyone back into the office, with the Tory papers on a crusade to get everyone back to the office.

"The unvaccinated are not causing excess hospitalisations or deaths"

Utter rubbish. Have you spoken to anyone who works on these wards?

It's a pandemic and is likely to last up to 5 years before it fizzles out. Also it's a coronavirus, which means it is seasonal. We have vaccines but not ones that stop it spreading. This is only the second winter so there is bound to be a big increase in cases. Why fight the inevitable? Whether people act cautiously will determine whether the government introduces any restrictions. My money, based on what I am seeing in social gatherings, is that people are not willing to be cautious and therefore that restrictions will be re-introduced.

@Lunaduckdrop when the government removes all restrictions and tells people to get back to the office, you can't blame them for acting accordingly.

What are you basing the 'five years and fizzle out' on?

@Lunaduckdrop

"The unvaccinated are not causing excess hospitalisations or deaths"

Utter rubbish. Have you spoken to anyone who works on these wards?

I agree with you. I wonder what proportion of unvaccinated are yet to get it.

Surely the isolation rules will revert back to what they were?
Dd2 has covid , the other 5 of us can go and do what we like / school / work etc🤔

@Lostinacloud

I don’t understand why almost 2 years into this thing they haven’t bolstered the nhs ready for another winter season

Because some people deal with a problem not by working hard on it, trying their best and solving it, but by denying it and minimising it.

The government has turned

^"Go back to normal and pretend it's not happening"
^
into policy.

Which is why so many of us are dead and so many more of us are about to be.

I am not in England and have not heard of any Plan B. I do not accept for one second that another lockdown is already planned.

But I do worry, a lot, about the apparent strategy in England to just let Covid spread. Unless I have completely misunderstood the science, is that not how variants show up?

Where I live we have mask mandates and a so-called vaccine passport for entry to non-essential places like restaurants. There is very little pushback as it makes sense. If you choose not to be vaccinated, fine, but you are restricted from some places.

We also have numbers warranting stricter measures in some places. That also makes sense.

I hope that England does not become the source of more variants of concern. We have all had enough, especially our health care professionals.

Tbh you only have to look at Aus and NZ and see that ‘bolstering’ healthcare isn’t that easy. Otherwise they would have done it.

They knew what was coming even more than we did.

@doublemonkey

The anti-vaxxers tend to use the reductive but they said the vaccine would stop everyone getting Covid and it hasn't so it doesn't work" trope. Thankfully, more intelligent people understand that that's not what vaccines do.

Actually, that's exactly what vaccines are supposed to do.

However, an intelligent person would know that what is being called a vaccine in this case is not a vaccine but a hastily developed RNA therapy.

No, it's not. Can you name one vaccine that stops 100% of people being infected?

The vaccines do an amazing job. They are effective at reducing transmission, severe illness and death by huge proportions.

But they're not an all or nothing, black or white magical solution to covid, and some people only seem capable of of thinking in binary terms.

"Vaccines work so everything's fixed."

And

"Everything's not fixed - so vaccines don't work."

When actually it's:

Vaccines work better than we hoped but if your government implements policies that create a million detected cases a month a lot of people are going to go to hospital and die, and once the doubling gets going again it's going to be a lot more.

"18:39bluetuesdayy

@Lunaduckdrop when the government removes all restrictions and tells people to get back to the office, you can't blame them for acting accordingly.

What are you basing the 'five years and fizzle out' on?"

I'm not blaming the population. We have governments for a reason - they make the rules!

As regards the 5 years, I think that's what tends to happen with pandemics. After that time the disease has become less serious and part of illness that people get and usually recover from. The tendency is for them to get less serious and more transmissible. A disease that kills or hospitalises all its victims will soon die out! If you read up about the 1918/19 flu pandemic, it ran a course where it mutated to less serious but more endemic.

@edisonbulb

Are they nudging us to plan B with the presser on Sunday the articles in the papers the headlines on Sky and BBC being the worst in Europe.

I can't see another lockdown happening but masks easy fix and work from home well for some.

Masks are not "an easy fix".

Though they might be for the people who are reassured by a bit of Covid performance theatre.

We will limp into Christmas with plan B’s help but I feel the damage is already done and just as autumn weather hits we are in possibly the worst case scenario starting point (with vaccines).

Over the next two and a half months we may see the NHS buckle under the pressure of Covid and general winter problems. Once this happens and lives are deemed at risk as a result of lower quality of care we will have no choice but to lockdown in some form or another.

That’s when we’ll get Plan C, the next lockdown, most likely to happen after Christmas when the rates will no doubt be extremely high once more due to festive socialising and cold weather.