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

Masks don't stop the spread completely by themselves, they can be helpful in a motivated society where people accept them and don't want to infect other people, see masks as polite etc., together with high use of vaccines, cf Japan

Countries WITH rules forcing the wearing of masks are also seeing huge spikes in infections, so they're not really stopping the spread

Correction: they are not stopping all of the spread. Masks undoubtedly stop some of the spread, and therefore masks reduce covid deaths.

I do not know how many times I suggested that we compare England to the other three UK nations mandating masks. There are no visible differences in heath outcomes.

Masks might have made people “feel safer” but they would not have saves thousands or hundreds of lives. In fact, if we look at some of the modelling, introducing restrictions when cases are flat / not increasing might lead to a higher wave down the road. It is a pendulum effect - we can reduce transmission now but we may pay the price in a few weeks/months time when cases spike due to seasonality or behavioural changes.

The question is whether the excess deaths associated with our very high level of cases and deaths in the summer will actually have been lower than if we had had lower cases in the summer but a spike in the winter.

But a spike in the winter would coincide with flu and other hospitalisation so you’d need to increase restrictions? And if as we see in Austria etc passes and masks do all you need then you have the issue of harsher measures.

Don’t do..

@rrhuth

Countries WITH rules forcing the wearing of masks are also seeing huge spikes in infections, so they're not really stopping the spread

Correction: they are not stopping all of the spread. Masks undoubtedly stop some of the spread, and therefore masks reduce covid deaths.

Masks undoubtedly stop some of the spread

There is no evidence to support this claim.

@SecretKeeper1

18k is still quite a lot of deaths mind you.

Especially compared to other nearby countries over the summer.

Especially if a few more (non lockdown) precautions could have reduced that figure. Thinking again of the 3Cs and JVT telling us we could learn from Eastern countries.

I think if you look at Ireland, Germany, Austria with more measures than us and a faster rising spike Delta is better kept steady by high immunity.

There is no evidence to support this claim.

Well, there is one credible study supporting this claim - the Bangladeshi RCT, however:

• It has shown 9-12% benefit for surgical masks. The highest impact was seen in older population groups (over 50s+).;
• Mask wearing has been cofounded by “community education”; and
• The trial ran pre-Delta. The results for a more transmissible variant may be different.

I doubt we’ll be able to say who had the best strategy for at least a year or two yet.
Best strategy to include effects on a country’s economy, as well as levels of deaths and strains on health services.

There is quite a bit of scientific evidence for masks having a beneficial effect in keeping numbers down. I'd suggest either looking in Nature or the Lancet for articles or some of the many other threads on this on the Coronavirus board.

@herecomesthsun

Masks don't stop the spread completely by themselves, they can be helpful in a motivated society where people accept them and don't want to infect other people, see masks as polite etc., together with high use of vaccines, cf Japan

We have family in Singapore, where masks were often worn anyway, and people are generally rather more compliant with rules or advice, than in the U.K.

But cases there have been soaring lately regardless.

& Japan is quite a good advert for immunity + masks and distancing of some sort

There are some really strange people on Mumsnet. If anyone suggests that the U.K. is not completely crap after all, they get “British Exceptionalism” shouted at them. When I read the OP, I just think that someone is trying to counteract all the criticism we’ve had since the summer. I don’t think that it’s suggesting that the U.K. is far superior in every way, just that the approach we have taken may be the best in the circumstances.

I'd suggest either looking in Nature or the Lancet for articles or some of the many other threads on this on the Coronavirus board.

The problem is a lot of these studies are of poor quality and do not separate impact of mask wearing from confounding factors. The latest meta-analysis in BMJ (followed by the Guardian article claiming that mask wearing reduces transmission by 53%) is a typical example of poor headlines/far reaching conclusions.

The Bangladesh RCT is probably the only reliable study I have seen so far. There is also another RCT in New Guinea that is still running. It will be interesting to see the results.

@BunsyGirl

There are some really strange people on Mumsnet. If anyone suggests that the U.K. is not completely crap after all, they get “British Exceptionalism” shouted at them. When I read the OP, I just think that someone is trying to counteract all the criticism we’ve had since the summer. I don’t think that it’s suggesting that the U.K. is far superior in every way, just that the approach we have taken may be the best in the circumstances.

Yes to this! We’re not allowed to be remotely pleased with our country, are we?

I actually feel tentatively optimistic the end is in sight, for the first time in months. We may be in for a bumpy winter but I hope spring brings an altogether brighter picture.

Our strategy is nuts. And mask wearing does reduce covid transmission. If you're not wearing a mask at the moment in shops, on the bus, in the hairdressers etc, now is the time to start again. And do a lateral flow if you're going somewhere that a mask isn't appropriate. We need a multi layered strategy - masks plus vaccines plus other NPIs is what could get us through the winter.

med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-masks-covid-19.html

www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/wearing-masks-single-most-effective-way-to-tackle-covid-study-finds

Yes I feel cautiously optimistic that this approach will make winter not so bad.

It’s nearly end of November, in three to four weeks schools will be out and out case rate is linked to that age group a fair bit atm

Everyone boosters to deal with Christmas mixing then back to school with high immunity in classes

Then Spring

Hope so as it’s been tough.

User3456 - the first link is the Bangladesh RCT (the only credible study I talked about). One of the authors of the study (an economist from Stanford) has tried to “oversell” the result but the real life difference was 9-12%, not higher.

The other two links relate to the recent “meta-analysis” and the misleading Guardian article I have also mentioned.

FFP2 ones, if you fit them close to your face, are 94-95% effective at stopping your particles escaping to infect others, and protect the wearer I think around 60%? So, logically, if everyone went around properly wearing FFP2s willingly indoors, ventilating spaces and so on, the chances of it spreading would be incredibly small. Especially when combined with vaccines.

I know not everyone can afford them, but if the government really wanted to bring cases right down, they could offer a certain number per week to people.
It's only a virus. Its only means of movement is through people's breathing/shouting/coughing etc. We could outwit it. And then the more we do get numbers down then it gets less and less likely to get it, on top of those mitigations.

Pressure would decrease on the NHS and they could get on with treating non-contagious illnesses, and people would avoid long illness or death. Since the beginning of this, I just do not understand why we've been letting it run riot as much as we have.

@romanroy You may want to educate yourself and Chat to any long covid nhs clinics across the UK about the neurological effects of covid on some patients suffering from long covid.
It’s a documented issue and they are pouring lots of resources to understand it and treat it better.

But @duffeldaisy, you are missing a key point. You are assuming that everyone wants to do their absolute best with masks.

Lots of people all the way through have been wearing masks to show compliance. Nobody wants a confrontation in the cheese aisle at Tesco with some busybody demanding to know why you haven't got a mask on. So we wear our paper masks, whip them off the very second we can, shove them in our bag or the side pocket of the car, use the same one until it's manky.

Very few people give two hoots about particles and transmission and that X mask stops 75% and Y mask stops 78%.

@MarshaBradyo

I think if you look at Ireland, Germany, Austria with more measures than us and a faster rising spike Delta is better kept steady by high immunity.

High immunity is achieved at a cost though. I’m not just thinking about deaths but also long covid and the people who were not ‘supposed’ to be that ill but still take months to recover. And often those people still end up back at work because SSP etc…, feel shit and then take even longer to recover .

We also have no idea how long said natural immunity last.

We know immunity from vaccines isn’t great. Natural immunity is supposed to last 6 months. Does it? Does it not? Does it last longer? Who knows…

I’m feeling cautiously optimistic too. I think it was a bold strategy but I agree with it. Next few weeks people will be worried about cases rising (we are currently Covid central in our town) but we haven’t even hit 50% of the worse case modelling. There will again be calls for a reintroduction of restrictions. But we need to hold our nerve (nothing against masks, more people wearing them in our town but reintroducing them won’t do much).

The current models are showing that our booster program plus a lot of natural immunity means we will not see huge spikes in hospitalisations and deaths. Even the pessimistic SAGE are on board with this.

No gloating, no wanting other countries to do badly here. But I do very much want to avoid lockdowns and restrictions which are harmful.