Are we nearer the beginning, the middle, or the end of the covid pandemic?

[PrincessNutNuts]

They asked this on YouGov this week.

What do you think?

Beginning of the end I'd say.

After today’s boosters announcement I now feel we’re still some distance off midway. Europe’s next wave is now in progress and we may or may not follow suit with ‘storm clouds gathering’ according to BJ. It would therefore make sense for us to adopt plan B now rather than wait for the situation to get worse only to need even harsher restrictions to ease off a surge, waiting is just another step backwards.

2 years of this madness come March, 2 years.

I dont think anyone on this thread has suggested it is over. Just that people have differen

Princess - I think you are so entrenched in your belief that you are correct and that these low levels are both a powderkeg waiting to explode and that the damage it is doing is unneccessary and can be solved if only we could come up with the correct level of interventions (by looking and working with other countries) that sitting down like COP and coming up with Europe wide agreed approach could keep it at a lower level for the next few months to a year or so.

It isnt that you are wrong in many ways how you think it should be done would be a perfectly logical approach. It just wont be - and it isnt because you are proactive and everyone else is defeatist or has surrendered, or that people think it is over. It is just part of human behaviour and cultural factors at play that we are where we are. Because everyone looks at the data differently. I have always said following THE science has always been flawed. THere is no the. Just a set of data people look at and access and analyse and come up with different answers

@Thewiseoneincognito I dont get the storm clouds over Europe bit at all and how it will affect us (new variant notwithstanding). We all have levels of Delta we have all tried different approaches at suppressing from our pretty much none (vaccine just I think it was on another thread) to different countries vaccine plus. Different vaccine rollouts has lead to waning at different times and different times of removing restrictions has led to the situation on the mainland particularly the eastern bloc.

Because I think that does blinker your approach that you see everyone else as being lazy and defeatist

I don't.

I describe the government and their policy that way.

The British public can be as denialist, ill-informed, ideologically blinkered, illogical, fatalistic, and negative as they want. They can support lazy defeatist policy if they like.

It's not our job to protect the country from threats.

It's the government's.

And of course they could do it better.

The way we know that is:

Most of the world IS doing it better.

Especially the ones who have had fewer covid deaths over the 23 months of the pandemic than we had in the last week. Or the last month.

@Quartz2208

I dont think anyone on this thread has suggested it is over. Just that people have differen

Princess - I think you are so entrenched in your belief that you are correct and that these low levels are both a powderkeg waiting to explode and that the damage it is doing is unneccessary and can be solved if only we could come up with the correct level of interventions (by looking and working with other countries) that sitting down like COP and coming up with Europe wide agreed approach could keep it at a lower level for the next few months to a year or so.

It isnt that you are wrong in many ways how you think it should be done would be a perfectly logical approach. It just wont be - and it isnt because you are proactive and everyone else is defeatist or has surrendered, or that people think it is over. It is just part of human behaviour and cultural factors at play that we are where we are. Because everyone looks at the data differently. I have always said following THE science has always been flawed. THere is no the. Just a set of data people look at and access and analyse and come up with different answers

@Thewiseoneincognito I dont get the storm clouds over Europe bit at all and how it will affect us (new variant notwithstanding). We all have levels of Delta we have all tried different approaches at suppressing from our pretty much none (vaccine just I think it was on another thread) to different countries vaccine plus. Different vaccine rollouts has lead to waning at different times and different times of removing restrictions has led to the situation on the mainland particularly the eastern bloc.

That's why I'm always pretty good at predicting what's about to happen.

Because I know it has very little to do with science or data.

The decisions our government make are largely political choices.

Hold on if you make your predictions based on the political choices how can that be unbiased?

Just spoke with a relative in Italy. Things are getting worrying there - many schools in their area shut (when they battled through before) and quite a few people they know now testing positive.

If the storm clouds are gathering over Europe and the wave is coming through, how come it is the UK that is so uniquely bad? It is just tiresome to make out again and again and again that "the whole world is looking at us and laughing" when it's patently such a load of absolute tosh. We are not the only country suffering from covid. We are not the only country struggling to deal with it.

I can't believe someone honestly believes a virus behaves according to the government of the country it finds itself in...

@PrincessNutNuts

I think you predicted that additional restrictions/measures would be introduced in England this month? Let's see what the next couple of weeks bring.

[quote Sunshinegirl82]@PrincessNutNuts

I think you predicted that additional restrictions/measures would be introduced in England this month? Let's see what the next couple of weeks bring.[/quote]
I did.

Let's.

@Quartz2208

Hold on if you make your predictions based on the political choices how can that be unbiased?

Why wouldn't it be?

How can it not. You write about the government in scathing terms and then say that you base your predictions on government policy? How can your clear prejudice against the government (which is in your posts) not shape that? Particularly if you eschew the data in favour of government policy.

It doesnt make you wrong. I just cannot see how you can claim to be unfettered by preconceived beliefs or ideologies?

@Quartz2208

How can it not. You write about the government in scathing terms and then say that you base your predictions on government policy? How can your clear prejudice against the government (which is in your posts) not shape that? Particularly if you eschew the data in favour of government policy.

It doesnt make you wrong. I just cannot see how you can claim to be unfettered by preconceived beliefs or ideologies?

If Michael Buble was in charge of U.K. covid policy and I said that Michael Buble was doing the wrong things that would have damaging results.

And they did have damaging results over and over again for 23 months.

Your takeaway would be:

PrincessNutNuts hates Michael Buble

???

It is interesting that you think that would be my takeaway. But no it wouldnt be

@Quartz2208

It is interesting that you think that would be my takeaway. But no it wouldnt be

Ah, so you can apply objective logic when it's Michael Buble...

No I was simply saying it is interesting that you said I would think you hated him. Rather than you disliked his policy choices rather than him. I concede that there is a difference between hating the choices someone makes and hating them

How is

I said that Michael Buble was doing the wrong things that would have damaging results.

Not subjective? It is your belief that he is doing the wrong thing and that the results are damaging. Not only that but your perception of his past failures has meant that you now based future projections based on the past failures.

@DottyHarmer

Just spoke with a relative in Italy. Things are getting worrying there - many schools in their area shut (when they battled through before) and quite a few people they know now testing positive.

If the storm clouds are gathering over Europe and the wave is coming through, how come it is the UK that is so uniquely bad? It is just tiresome to make out again and again and again that "the whole world is looking at us and laughing" when it's patently such a load of absolute tosh. We are not the only country suffering from covid. We are not the only country struggling to deal with it.

I can't believe someone honestly believes a virus behaves according to the government of the country it finds itself in...

Which area? I'm in Italy and there's been nothing on any national news about schools closing anywhere. Positivity rate nationally is 1.7% on half a million daily tests. This time last year it was 17%. Last night's news said no need for alarm, just to carry on with sensible precautions. They are speeding up the rollout of the boosters, and it's expected 5-12 year olds will be approved for vaccination by the end of next week. I was saying on another thread, the region causing some concern with rates far higher than the national average is Friuli, which has been the centre of the anti-vax /anti green pass protests. Some of their hospitals are getting concerned, that's why the police are clamping down on the protestors.

@Quartz2208

No I was simply saying it is interesting that you said I would think you hated him. Rather than you disliked his policy choices rather than him. I concede that there is a difference between hating the choices someone makes and hating them

How is

I said that Michael Buble was doing the wrong things that would have damaging results.

Not subjective? It is your belief that he is doing the wrong thing and that the results are damaging. Not only that but your perception of his past failures has meant that you now based future projections based on the past failures.

I learn from experience.

Who doesn't?!

@Quartz2208

How can it not. You write about the government in scathing terms and then say that you base your predictions on government policy? How can your clear prejudice against the government (which is in your posts) not shape that? Particularly if you eschew the data in favour of government policy.

It doesnt make you wrong. I just cannot see how you can claim to be unfettered by preconceived beliefs or ideologies?

I'm objective.

"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

I'm not prejudiced against the people with the bad covid policy.

I'm against bad covid policy.

I'd rather have bloody Covid than Michael Bublé.

@Geamhradh

I'd rather have bloody Covid than Michael Bublé.

I wouldn't go that far.

Is that an objective or subjective opinion @PrincessNutNuts

@Quartz2208

Is that an objective or subjective opinion *@PrincessNutNuts*

I'm always objective Quartz.

I have experience of both covid and Michael Buble.

And covid is worse. Particularly after the first time. Which was still less fun than Michael Buble.

That is unusual though Princess - to always remain objective and not have any emotional bias or preconceived ideas. Very few are always objective in life.

Have you had COVID twice? And evidence suggests it can be either (I know both ways).

But that is your opinion though - people find different things - some people love Michael Buble some hate it.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/

Is quite an interesting read for objectivity- and I think with COVID we cannot escape that are experiences and perspectives shape are views around it.

@PrincessNutNuts you still seem to be of the opinion that there is a way out that isn’t this. So tell me what it is? What Europe country has followed it and succeeded
Germany certainly isn’t seemingly it?

I don't know about Princess.

People like Devi Sridhar, who have spent the last few weeks going on, and on, about how awesome the continental European response has been, have now finally shut up about Germany and similar, and have neatly pivoted to telling us that actually, South Korea is the one we should be copying. Somewhat embarrassingly, deaths now seem to be doing a bit of a spike over in SK as well. And so it goes on.

Honestly, everyone, I give up. Before Delta, there was a chance of eliminating the bloody thing, perhaps, and suppression at least tended to work if it was done well enough. With Delta, as far as I can see there is no real solution other than to vax the population up as tightly as you possibly can and then let the thing run until it's embedded in the population as an endemic virus.

And my God, has there ever been a virus with a more Voldemort-like curse attached to its name? The second you dare to say "XYZ country seems to have finally nailed COVID," the virus immediately starts going mad in precisely that country.

The good news is that even the spikes we are seeing now are pretty subdued compared with last winter. We're on the downward course. It's just that it's a jagged up-and-down line rather than a smooth one.