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?

@TheReluctantPhoenix
“Vaccine is pretty good, really.”

Yes, especially triple doses no doubt, but I expect an endemic stage, where it is mostly seasonal before we get to anything like the situation we have with measles.

So, all this poll has proven to show, is that no one knows.
What a surprise!

As always OP I am confused by the point you are trying to make other than the fact that the government has handled parts of this incredibly badly - which given the fact of the care home report at the start of all of this cannot be argued.

Singapore is different to us - it currently has restrictions far heavier than plan B (look at gatherings and going to restaurants) and its opening up is similar to Australia in that borders are open and lockdowns have gone. It also has a lot less community immunity.

The difficult third album bit where the band are struggling to retain fans and the new band in town has significant draw.

Its hard to convince people its worth following the band still, but you can still get a decent crowd who often will make the point of how they've been the most loyal supporters from the start (though they start slagging off how the band has lost its way and are secretly listening to the next new band and considering buying ticket even though they say they aren't).

In three months time the album will either be a massive success leading to 2 or 3 more successful albums before fading into oblivion when the band split to have kids or it will have completely bombed taking various record executives with it for supporting such a critically acclaimed disaster and everyone who supported it will now say they didn't really like it anyway.

Or to put it another way i think its mid way through the pandemic at a point where there's a lack of certainty and flailing about over policy which no one is 100% comvinced of and it just has to be put out there to see what happens.

Because we've intervened in the pandemic unnaturally we don't really know if that will shorten it, make it less lethal that it otherwise would have been or even almost drag it out further than expected. We have a prediction but we don't really know for sure.

I don't think we are at the end - restrictions around the world are going to persist for some time. Global sporting events well into the summer 2022 are already saying they will have certain requirements. I think this is likely to head into 2023 in certain countries too.

If this winter is shocking for the uk, big questions will start to be asked about next year if we don't see significant drop off in cases coming into December in line with expectations.

Of course we are somewhere in the middle, the start was last year and we are not at the end as we are still threatened with restrictions.

I would say almost at midway in the ‘pandemic’ stage, but we’re expecting to run when we’ve only just started to stand up. We still have the winter to get through and there’s no clear perspective yet on how the vaccination strategy will need to be going forward to maintain protection for those that would need it in order to not swamp hospitals even more. Globally there’s still countries at significant risk of massive casualties from outbreaks due to poor vaccination progress which will have impacts for us all certainly for the next year or two.

In terms of Covid itself I have a strong feeling we have only just begun our lifelong journey in dealing with the implications of variants, continuous boosters and the unknown effects of reinfection over a prolonged period of time.

We may choose to try to ignore it and get on with life as we knew it but ultimately we are still at the mercy of this virus, only time will tell as it’s a story yet to be written.

@Bringonthepjs

She hasn't answered my question as to what she does for a living yet, I'm presuming science based? Wing woman to Chris Witty?

People in government decide what happens next in the U.K. pandemic response.

So no scientific expertise required.

You just need a working memory of the last 22 months, and no ideological blinkers to know what's coming next.

It's the same as it's been since China first announced covid in December 2019:

Pretend everything is fine and do nothing for as long as you can get away with it.

Do some stuff that actively makes things worse.

Bring in some inadequate measures that don’t work because they are too little too late.

Lockdown.

@Quartz2208

As always OP I am confused by the point you are trying to make other than the fact that the government has handled parts of this incredibly badly - which given the fact of the care home report at the start of all of this cannot be argued.

Singapore is different to us - it currently has restrictions far heavier than plan B (look at gatherings and going to restaurants) and its opening up is similar to Australia in that borders are open and lockdowns have gone. It also has a lot less community immunity.

It's the lack of community immunity that's the biggest issue. Singapore and Australia's decision to aggressively suppress Covid over the past 18 months may have yielded both economic and health benefits over that time, but it will delay their return to normality.

In terms of Covid itself I have a strong feeling we have only just begun our lifelong journey in dealing with the implications of variants, continuous boosters and the unknown effects of reinfection over a prolonged period of time.

We may choose to try to ignore it and get on with life as we knew it but ultimately we are still at the mercy of this virus, only time will tell as it’s a story yet to be written

Personally I’m prepared to live with whatever the virus does- As long as we don’t have to live in this toxic social and political climate anymore. That’s what I’m focused on.

@Myalternate

So, all this poll has proven to show, is that no one knows. What a surprise!

What it shows is that no matter how often the government talk about the covid pandemic in the past tense most people are not fooled.

What will happen is heavily dependent on what people do.

Primarily the people in government.

And ours are pretty predictable.

@Pootle40

I love that this thread was really a ruse for the OP to chat about mitigations.........

One does not simply start a thread about restrictions.

Or even simply respond to one of the many existing thread about restrictions.

One must start a thread that isn’t about restrictions then be at least the 15th person to bring them up.

@Bizawit

In terms of Covid itself I have a strong feeling we have only just begun our lifelong journey in dealing with the implications of variants, continuous boosters and the unknown effects of reinfection over a prolonged period of time.

We may choose to try to ignore it and get on with life as we knew it but ultimately we are still at the mercy of this virus, only time will tell as it’s a story yet to be written

Personally I’m prepared to live with whatever the virus does- As long as we don’t have to live in this toxic social and political climate anymore. That’s what I’m focused on.

Me too. It’s people asking for ongoing suppression and lockdown that concern me. Well if they had an impact by asking, I doubt it’s the position of government

People can talk about variants, boosters, Long Covid, re-infection etc but nothing concerns me as much.

In the UK middle. For countries pursuing zero covid they are at the start.

It's still fairly early days and definitely in this for the long haul.

I think the UK government have been remiss removing the mask mandate and social distancing so soon.

The poll is meaningless unless everyone answering looks at the global position, not what is happening in their life. The question asked about the pandemic, so the global position. We have billions unvaccinated so the virus is not going anywhere for some time to come.
Looking at the U.K. in the last week over 1000 people died with Covid listed as the cause. 40k people a day tested positive and god knows how many more have caught it but don’t know/care to be tested.
We have more knowledge about cv-19 and new drugs are being trialled at the moment to help with serious health problems caused by the virus, so moving forward it will be a virus that can be treated to a reasonable extent.
I think we are firmly in the middle of the pandemic and can’t see us out the other side for a couple more years.

I’m not convinced that countries that have gone for maximum suppression will be significantly slower to get back to normal than most of Europe provided they have high vaccination rates.
Certainly they won’t have the pressure on their health services that we have from delayed treatments and long Covid as well as mental health problems and burnout in health care staff. They can also go straight for a triple-vaccine strategy having seen what works.

@ImTellingTales

I’m not convinced that countries that have gone for maximum suppression will be significantly slower to get back to normal than most of Europe provided they have high vaccination rates. Certainly they won’t have the pressure on their health services that we have from delayed treatments and long Covid as well as mental health problems and burnout in health care staff. They can also go straight for a triple-vaccine strategy having seen what works.

It could be slower not sure but lockdowns also cause issues with mental health and some have had the longest.

@ImTellingTales

I’m not convinced that countries that have gone for maximum suppression will be significantly slower to get back to normal than most of Europe provided they have high vaccination rates. Certainly they won’t have the pressure on their health services that we have from delayed treatments and long Covid as well as mental health problems and burnout in health care staff. They can also go straight for a triple-vaccine strategy having seen what works.

That's what I think.

Having kept their populations alive, restrictions to a minimum, and their economies on a more even keel for 22 months, now they just have to vaccinate and calibrate ongoing NPIs to protect their achievement - and they will have got through the pandemic relatively unscathed.

They're way ahead of countries like us who are staring down the barrel of another wave of chaos, death, and restrictions.

@PrincessNutNuts

Having kept their populations alive, restrictions to a minimum, and their economies on a more even keel for 22 months, now they just have to vaccinate and calibrate ongoing NPIs to protect their achievement - and they will have got through the pandemic relatively unscathed.

In order to "protect their achievement", given the transmissibility of Delta, even in spite of vaccinations, the interventions necessary to keep infections very low and prevent R being greater than 1 given a population with very little infection derived immunity would need to be draconian and permanent. Ultimately that won't be sustainable, though some countries may try for a few years....

On what are you basing the claims of chaos lockdowns and restrictions on though? Where is your data

It is interesting though that we are lumped in with Europe (rightly) because the countries you seem to what us to be like we just arent

They're way ahead of countries like us who are staring down the barrel of another wave of chaos, death, and restrictions.

and yet you say you are just a lay person with a half decent memory, what's with the uber gloomy doom mongering then? Where are the facts? You seem to be forgetting the triple vaccinated?

@Bringonthepjs

They're way ahead of countries like us who are staring down the barrel of another wave of chaos, death, and restrictions.

and yet you say you are just a lay person with a half decent memory, what's with the uber gloomy doom mongering then? Where are the facts? You seem to be forgetting the triple vaccinated?

I just give my opinion the same as everybody else.

It's never doom-mongering. It's my assessment of the situation.

I'm confident in my opinions because I'm usually correct.

Its possible that my absence of ideological blinkers is why I am more clear-eyed than more politically motivated posters who seem (to me) to act like the covid pandemic is some sort of tribal identity politics thing that has "sides".

@Quartz2208

On what are you basing the claims of chaos lockdowns and restrictions on though? Where is your data

It is interesting though that we are lumped in with Europe (rightly) because the countries you seem to what us to be like we just arent

Experience.

As I said earlier.

[quote Warhertisuff]@PrincessNutNuts

Having kept their populations alive, restrictions to a minimum, and their economies on a more even keel for 22 months, now they just have to vaccinate and calibrate ongoing NPIs to protect their achievement - and they will have got through the pandemic relatively unscathed.

In order to "protect their achievement", given the transmissibility of Delta, even in spite of vaccinations, the interventions necessary to keep infections very low and prevent R being greater than 1 given a population with very little infection derived immunity would need to be draconian and permanent. Ultimately that won't be sustainable, though some countries may try for a few years....

[/quote]
It's the opposite of that in my opinion.

@PrincessNutNuts

It's the opposite of that in my opinion.

Ok, what kind of temporary and mild restrictions do you think would be sufficient to keep Covid at bay in countries with little natural immunity?

Experience.

As I said earlier.

What experience? You live in the UK presumably as do I, therefore our experience of this will be broadly the same .