It seems like the U.K. may have a better Covid strategy after all

[Warhertisuff]

... at least since the emergence of Delta. I generally supported the restrictions before last summer, but thought that opening up in July was sensible. It's too early to tell
for sure, but at the moment it looks like the right call.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59378849

If we had had earlier lockdowns, then they could probably have been shorter, with the same or better outcome.

We didn't learn the lessons of March 2020 - of going early according to Patrick Vallance - and so ended up with another longish lockdown in Jan 2021.

@MarshaBradyo

UK numbers high - all part of a Cunning Plan

Do you accept the CMO advised this yet? As he said it the way to go. Do you need quote or did you see it

I think he went along with the Government plan, as we have discussed before.

Here I don’t think he’s the type to lie. He could have easily omitted including myself part,

He’s very careful with wording and has been through out.

Chris Whitty said:

“There is quite a strong view by many people, including myself actually, that going in the summer has some advantages, all other things being equal, to opening up into the autumn when schools are going back and when we’re heading into the winter period when the NHS tends to be under greatest pressure for many other reasons,” he added.

Bearing in mind how covid deaths are recorded, might be worth reading this advice/guidance for medics:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877302/guidance-for-doctors-completing-medical-certificates-of-cause-of-death-covid-19.pdf

“For example, if before death the patient had symptoms typical of COVID- 19 infection, but the test result has not been received, it would be satisfactory to give ‘COVID-19’ as the cause of death, tick Box B and then share the test result when it becomes available. In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement.“

I think the above paragraph is interesting. In the absence of a (positive) swab, a doctor can still assume that a death might be covid. So many end of life respiratory symptoms are very ‘covid like’ If a medic is actively looking for those signs, they will almost definitely see them. It is therefore possible that covid might also be over certified and the excess deaths be caused by flu etc.

I have no idea why the UK specifically has this real issue with wearing them

Scotland is IN the UK and we ARE wearing masks and it HASN’T kept cases low. We have had case spikes higher than England ever has. After England’s ‘freedom day’, our case rate up here went up to nearly three times higher than England’s. Three times higher!

Maybe masks very slightly slow the spread, but they do not keep cases low and they do not prevent those same infections from happening eventually anyway.

I don’t know why seeing country after country after country with masks get hit with high delta spikes is not enough to suggest that masks don’t prevent high delta case spikes?

@herecomesthsun

If we had had earlier lockdowns, then they could probably have been shorter, with the same or better outcome.

We didn't learn the lessons of March 2020 - of going early according to Patrick Vallance - and so ended up with another longish lockdown in Jan 2021.

Thing is that regardless of when they started, they went on too long. It's inevitable that rates rise as soon as restrictions are eased, whether that's after 1 month or 3 months or 6 months. For each lockdown, once rates had shown a significant fall, we should have had relaxations.

Say, for illustration, death rates had fallen from 1,000 per day to just 100 per day after a month of lockdown, there really was no point to continue the damage of lockdown for another month to get the death rates down from say 100 per day to, say, 50 per day. The damage to the economy, mental health, jobs, businesses, health, etc of an extra month of lockdown "just" to save a relatively small number of daily deaths is not proportional.

@Awomanwalksintoabar

Wow, why so patronising all of a sudden, *@Lilifer*?! Look, it’s by no means a truism to say that by the end of the winter everyone will be recovered, vaccinated or dead. He’s trying to impress on people how rife the virus is, so they decide to get vaccinated. Loads of people haven’t had it. He’s telling them they’ll get it this winter, vaccinated or not. I dunno what else to say to you, but if you’re going to be PA when I’m being perfectly nice, I’d rather you didn’t reply. HTH.

I'm not being patronising at all, I was clarifying that I wasn't comparing timelines but illustrating truisms but in any case you've just made my point for me there in your own post as you seem to agreeing that as Spahns said, everyone in Germany is going to get covid, vaccinated or not.

@MarshaBradyo

Here I don’t think he’s the type to lie. He could have easily omitted including myself part,

He’s very careful with wording and has been through out.

Chris Whitty said:

“There is quite a strong view by many people, including myself actually, that going in the summer has some advantages, all other things being equal, to opening up into the autumn when schools are going back and when we’re heading into the winter period when the NHS tends to be under greatest pressure for many other reasons,” he added.

Nooo I didn't say he lied. Gosh, you do twist things. Maybe you should follow his example & be careful with words?

"The Government’s decision not to mandate the wearing of masks in indoor public spaces in legislation from Monday has caused a lot of controversy.

But Prof Whitty said the key on July 19 was “to take things incredibly slowly”, adding that he fully expected most people to continue to take precautions.

“If you look over what people have done, and in fact if you look at what people intend to do now, people have been incredibly good at saying, ‘I may be a relatively low risk, but people around me are at high risk, and I’m going to modify my behaviours’,” he said."

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/chris-whitty-urges-covid-19-caution-as-uk-not-out-of-the-woods-40658441.html

(one of a lot of articles emphasing caution)

It wasn't supposed to be a great free-for-all akin to a chickenpox party.

There is some merit in easing restrictions in the summer a little bit (especially if you think, as he seems to, that covid is going to persist as a problem for maybe 5 years).

There is also merit in taking away the full legal mandate and giving people responsibility, in the hope and expectation that they'll continue to be very careful. There is the argument that this is a healthy thing and can promote intelligent adoption of precautions in the medium to long term. It is just a shame that this wasn't supported by better messaging around the need to continue to take precautions.

I don't think that the poor messaging can be blamed on Chris Whitty either, he has urged caution so very many times.

@GoldenOmber

I have no idea why the UK specifically has this real issue with wearing them

Scotland is IN the UK and we ARE wearing masks and it HASN’T kept cases low. We have had case spikes higher than England ever has. After England’s ‘freedom day’, our case rate up here went up to nearly three times higher than England’s. Three times higher!

Maybe masks very slightly slow the spread, but they do not keep cases low and they do not prevent those same infections from happening eventually anyway.

I don’t know why seeing country after country after country with masks get hit with high delta spikes is not enough to suggest that masks don’t prevent high delta case spikes?

I think it was the exceptional John Murdoch-Burn who said on twitter recently that masks only make a difference to 5 to 10 % of cases at most. And that yes this makes a difference but there was a problem in the uk with discussion of masks which massively overstates the impact they can have.

@user1497207191 @MarshaBradyo I can assure you things are not good in Australia, protesters are not “rent a mob”, they are hard working normal Australia’s that have well and truly had enough.
It’s hard to describe unless you live here but if you want an idea, search Michael Gunner NT premier who is forcing our First Nation people into quarantine camps who test positive and close contacts.
The QLD premier will start the use of vaccine passports once her state reaches 80% vaxxed but is completely open to all until then.
Jacqui Lambie had a huge rant in parliament as what can only be described as hate speech.
VIC premier Dan Andrew’s is trying to pass draconian pandemic laws that is getting huge pushback from VIC Bar (60 QC’s, human rights lawyers and lawyers) and over 100,000 protestors marching.
I’d say we had 1,000,000 people marching nationwide on the 20th November, did it make the news?
There is so much division in this country and the politicians are fueling it. It feels like an abusive relationship, we are hurting.

Here no idea why that has sparked that response. I take it you hadn’t seen that quote before?

It’s pretty clear I don’t see it can be anything other than advising going higher in summer.

Yes he talked about caution and got it right because he’s also very good at behavioural understanding.

So open up summer public will still have element of caution. I really don’t see the issue with saying he backed this and thought it right way to.

I disagree that an “earlier” lockdown would have automatically meant a “shorter” one. Logically yes but again look at Melbourne, practically no cases and yet the powers that be wanted to get to zero. The goal posts always move, the “one last push” idea.
Look at Auckland in summer too, one case, meant to be a “ go hard, go early” short sharp lockdown. Guess what, still in lockdown now.

@GoldenOmber

I have no idea why the UK specifically has this real issue with wearing them

Scotland is IN the UK and we ARE wearing masks and it HASN’T kept cases low. We have had case spikes higher than England ever has. After England’s ‘freedom day’, our case rate up here went up to nearly three times higher than England’s. Three times higher!

Maybe masks very slightly slow the spread, but they do not keep cases low and they do not prevent those same infections from happening eventually anyway.

I don’t know why seeing country after country after country with masks get hit with high delta spikes is not enough to suggest that masks don’t prevent high delta case spikes?

I never said masks did or would keep cases low though? Or that they prevent high delta case spikes?

They reduce transmission - and reduce overall cumulative exposure if you have lots of people expelling viral particles in a crowded space.

My point is they reduce, with very little cost compared to other NPIs (as long as exemption policies are in place) so I don't understand why the resistance to them.

@user1497207191

The cases were going up with exponential growth very fast; they then come down really slowly.

The great thing is that we now have vaccines and boosters, so I would sincerely hope that we don't end up with that level of deaths over the winter now - or another lockdown.

Some caution might be a good idea, however. 3Cs and all that.

@MarshaBradyo

Here no idea why that has sparked that response. I take it you hadn’t seen that quote before?

It’s pretty clear I don’t see it can be anything other than advising going higher in summer.

Yes he talked about caution and got it right because he’s also very good at behavioural understanding.

So open up summer public will still have element of caution. I really don’t see the issue with saying he backed this and thought it right way to.

You seemed to wantt to have a conversation about this?

Whitty is very clearly advising caution.

Opening up was in order to give people a break, not because we wanted cases to be high.

Is that not crashingly obvious?

@Iggly

We learnt this year but I still think we should have had a shorter lockdown. And kids should have not had so much time off school. So damaging in many, many areas. I’ve said this before but history will not look back kindly on how we treated our children through this pandemic. It’s shocking

It’s quite telling that our government is run by mainly men, with little thought to the impact on families, children and (mainly!) mums trying to shoulder the burden of school closures. They didn’t have anyone at the top table advocating for them.

Yes.

The treatment of children and their carers during the pandemic has been disgusting. It's never been more obvious that the people making the decisions have got nannies than it has in the past 18 months.

I have no idea why the UK specifically has this real issue with wearing them Neither has most of the rest of the world apart from The US where it has also been politicised. Public health should be about sensible means of infection suppression, not politics or willy waving.

I was on a London transport bus recently, almost everyone wearing masks and socially distanced, then about 20 sixteen year olds got on, only a couple wore masks, happily took the seats of those of us who did not want to sit next to them and started singing loudly. 1 in 8 of their age group in our borough had Covid in their age group that week.

What part of the public health messaging from our politicians to the schools to parents has led to that group of kids thinking it is OK to go on a bus, ignore the mandatory mask rule and with a high probability at least a couple of them were transmitting the virus act in a way that would best infect the others on the bus? So many simple measures could easily be taken to reduce cases without cost to anyone but English society has chosen to collectively pretend Covid is over.

He is saying go higher that is the strategy - are you really not reading what he said?

I can’t help you. It’s there in his quote.

Btw you quoted me first as per if you don’t want to engage (and really I’m more than happy with that) quote someone else.

That was to Here

Two things:

1. There is no virus World Cup, there is no contest to be won here.

1. If at present our 'strategy' looks to be working, then that proves the old adage that 'it's better to be lucky than organised'.

It wasn't supposed to be a great free-for-all akin to a chickenpox party.

Italy is having a problem with covid parties amongst anti vaxxers because of restrictions.

In order to get a green pass which can affect whether you are allowed to work in certain sectors you either have to be double vaccinated which is valid for nine months or have had a positive covid test in the last 6. The only other valid pass is for a negative test which only lasts for 48 hours and costs you just over a tenner to obtain each time.

So anti vaxxer rather than get vaccinated have been deliberately infecting each other (although this is technically illegal) and has led to a number of incidents where people have died and with numerous hospitalised.

So the policy is having unintended consequences and arguably isn't working in the way its intended.

I think its a good example of showing how restrictions don't always lead to where you want to go and aren't risk free by any means, because humans tend to have their own idea and try and find every which way to get around them given the opportunity to do so.

You are only ever going to get a certain percentage of the population doing what you want and being lucky (not getting covid). Poverty and lack of trust are the two biggest drivers of people doing things you don't want them to do. You can't just ignore the issues of poverty and trust by putting in restrictions.

The problems driving behaviour which is more likely to result in people getting unlucky and infected still exist even if you ignore poverty and trust...

@MarshaBradyo

He is saying go higher that is the strategy - are you really not reading what he said?

I can’t help you. It’s there in his quote.

Btw you quoted me first as per if you don’t want to engage (and really I’m more than happy with that) quote someone else.

He does not actually say anything in that quote about wanting cases to be higher. I think this was because he did not actually want cases to be higher.

I can't help that you seem to be deliberately misreading what he has said.

@RedToothBrush

It wasn't supposed to be a great free-for-all akin to a chickenpox party.

Italy is having a problem with covid parties amongst anti vaxxers because of restrictions.

In order to get a green pass which can affect whether you are allowed to work in certain sectors you either have to be double vaccinated which is valid for nine months or have had a positive covid test in the last 6. The only other valid pass is for a negative test which only lasts for 48 hours and costs you just over a tenner to obtain each time.

So anti vaxxer rather than get vaccinated have been deliberately infecting each other (although this is technically illegal) and has led to a number of incidents where people have died and with numerous hospitalised.

So the policy is having unintended consequences and arguably isn't working in the way its intended.

I think its a good example of showing how restrictions don't always lead to where you want to go and aren't risk free by any means, because humans tend to have their own idea and try and find every which way to get around them given the opportunity to do so.

You are only ever going to get a certain percentage of the population doing what you want and being lucky (not getting covid). Poverty and lack of trust are the two biggest drivers of people doing things you don't want them to do. You can't just ignore the issues of poverty and trust by putting in restrictions.

The problems driving behaviour which is more likely to result in people getting unlucky and infected still exist even if you ignore poverty and trust...

This may be so in Italy.

However, I remain unconvinced that Whitty and Vallance were seriously wanting people in the UK to lose all caution and get the numbers up, as some on here have suggested.

I'd agree that linking evidence of infection to any sort of freedom pass could lead to problems and I think the UK has exercised some caution round that.

Going in summer - open in summer rather than autumn / winter.

It’s pretty clear he backed July 19 plus giving go ahead in cabinet

If he’s right and we avoid winter lockdown then I’ll be grateful he got it right.

Other people will say it wasn’t him I suppose

wanting people in the UK to lose all caution and get the numbers up, as some on here have suggested.

No they knew we’d retain some caution as behaviourally we had shown that and he got it right.