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 a spike is rising fast then it’s an issue. We don’t have that here atm tg

What do people think then happens

It’s not a difficult question but I am interested to know what pp thinks

I don’t really need people jumping in for whatever reason though. I don’t get why you would.

@duffeldaisy and actually our testing and vaccination has been good , at beginning testing not so but it has been good for a while , just look at how many tests we do
I know lots who have had covid with no symptoms so picked up on LFT or pcr due to contact etc
Vaccinations went well and now boosters seem to along with running flu vaccinations as well

The John Burn-Murdoch graph would suggest that the problem is much to do with low vax rates - so presumably they'll need a big vax drive plus strict measures till people gain immunity.

"cases are rising in countries with restrictions ? So what is the answer ?"

A combination of lots of things: high takeup of vaccines, wearing of masks, testing before meeting other people, excellent ventilation & filtration where necessary, and people trying to help each other.

It's not going to be forever. And if we can put a few more mitigations in place then we won't need to have lockdowns.

@650above and i can say the same for my son sine sept 2020 in the uk until he left , different areas have had different amount of cases as im sure is the case in France

@duffeldaisy but its still rising in countries that do this ?

@duffeldaisy also why is it not going to be forever ? Is covid going to just disappear do you think ?

@duffeldaisy we haven't been at 40000 cases daily for months either like you imply

Why should covid disappear? Duffeldaisy's suggested measures are presumably what will be put in place until there's enough immunity for cases to stabilise/ fall

"@duffeldaisy and actually our testing and vaccination has been good , at beginning testing not so but it has been good for a while , just look at how many tests we do
I know lots who have had covid with no symptoms so picked up on LFT or pcr due to contact etc
Vaccinations went well and now boosters seem to along with running flu vaccinations as well"

I agree on the vaccines. That has been good. We have to have boosters because we started vaccinating earlier than many other countries, so we need to catch it before immunity wanes.

Testing has been okay, but not any tracing. My kids got covid from an outbreak at school (just days before vaccines were rolled out for them) and the test and trace person who rang said that other classmates/friends at school didn't count for testing and tracing. I emailed the parents I knew to let them know.

@herecomesthsun but it looks like immunity is quite short lived , i mean we have high vaccination in uk and lots of infections yet its still spreading ?

@duffeldaisy

"cases are rising in countries with restrictions ? So what is the answer ?"

A combination of lots of things: high takeup of vaccines, wearing of masks, testing before meeting other people, excellent ventilation & filtration where necessary, and people trying to help each other.

It's not going to be forever. And if we can put a few more mitigations in place then we won't need to have lockdowns.

This sounds nice but not sure it’s enough for Austria / Germany type numbers with the increases they have

Austria obviously already lockdown, still discussing in Germany

@duffeldaisy presumably when you contacted school they would advise as well
When my son had covid test and trace asked for his contacts and details and his college and part time place of work etc even though we had told them all
They even asked for numbers etc and advised us to tell all close contacts to go for a pcr

[quote worriedatthemoment]@duffeldaisy we haven't been at 40000 cases daily for months either like you imply [/quote]
Not that far off. If you look up Lawrence Gilder on Twitter, his main overview statistic thingy shows the average rate and exact rate of cases per day over the last 4 weeks. And then you can go back and look at previous weeks too. The current 7 day average is 43,295.86 and the current peak of this wave is 60,759.

@duffeldaisy bit to be honest its been gping on That long we contacted everyone who was possibly at risk ourselves without having to be told , not one person he had contact with actually developed covid though incl us in the house , its such a strange virus

@duffeldaisy not months though , 7 days is a week , in oct we had days in late twenties , we also have a very high testing rate compared to many countries you have to take that into account
I know a far few who have had covid over last couple of months and many have been asymptomatic and picked up on lft so its all these things that need to be taken into account as well

@worriedatthemoment
That's really good of yours to do that. Ours weren't interested, unfortunately, just said they'd 'let people know', and I don't think they did, as we're never informed of outbreaks.
Saying that, ours did stop assemblies and strongly advised masks while they felt the risk had risen, so they've been okay overall.

[quote worriedatthemoment]@duffeldaisy not months though , 7 days is a week , in oct we had days in late twenties , we also have a very high testing rate compared to many countries you have to take that into account
I know a far few who have had covid over last couple of months and many have been asymptomatic and picked up on lft so its all these things that need to be taken into account as well [/quote]
No, if you go to October 31st, that shows the previous 4 weeks in October and every day is between 30-46,000, most of them around 40,000.

According to the Telegraph, Merkel wanted a 2 week lockdown, which has now been "thwarted", while Austria has a 10 day one in place. Presumably these could be extended.

If they can get enough jabs in arms quickly enough, that would help hugely though, Germany especially is not all that far behind the Uk on vaccine numbers, though has had fewer cases to give immunity that way.

This covers most of October.

40,000 of daily cases is probably not far off from what we should expect to see in the endemic state (given the very high R of Delta).

However, with other things being equal (no new variants, etc) breakthrough infections and reinfections should be milder than initial cases. Hospitalisations and deaths in the endemic state should therefore go down.

We got it right...? Yeah....no.

For good strategy (unless you mean eugenics lite and many avoidable deaths and disability) look to East Asia. Australia and New Zealand too. Check out their death rates and total number of deaths.

Oh and with Europe. Their cases are rising faster than ours....but they're coming from behind. (And unlike us, they're taking action). Our 'low stable' cases have been 1000s dead from Covid every week. For several months. Many more are suffering long term sickness of Long COVID.

What a shame we're not taking simple and easy mitigation measures. Mandatory masks in public enclosed spaces, for example.

www.health-ni.gov.uk/news/public-health-measures-effective-reducing-spread-covid-19

global study highlights mask-wearing as the single most effective public health measure at tackling Covid. The study, which has been published in the British Medical Journal, analysed data from over 70 individual studies undertaken in USA, Africa, Australia, Europe, South America, Asia and the Middle East.

Researchers from Monash University in Australia found that the studies indicated a 53 per cent reduction in new COVID-19 cases from wearing face masks.

I don’t see gloating unless the definition of gloating has changed from “dwelling on one's own success or another's misfortune with smugness or malignant pleasure” to “our approach wasn’t as crap as everyone said it was.”

Except that the actual point is, we don’t know that yet and any suggestion that it was is premature and sends a potentially damaging message that we’re all fine, when it should still be “proceed with caution”

@Tealightsandd

What a shame we're not taking simple and easy mitigation measures. Mandatory masks in public enclosed spaces, for example.

www.health-ni.gov.uk/news/public-health-measures-effective-reducing-spread-covid-19

global study highlights mask-wearing as the single most effective public health measure at tackling Covid. The study, which has been published in the British Medical Journal, analysed data from over 70 individual studies undertaken in USA, Africa, Australia, Europe, South America, Asia and the Middle East.

Researchers from Monash University in Australia found that the studies indicated a 53 per cent reduction in new COVID-19 cases from wearing face masks.

This has been debunked already.