[quote Octavia174]@RedToothBrush We are not doing everything possible at all, around 45k cases per day, avg of 150 daily deaths and NHS that is in complete crisis & all before we even get into the winter period.
The Govt's aim has been to limit economic loss & nothing else..
This new variant may or may not be the one that evades vaccines but to just limit flights and then sit on our hands is stupid beyond belief.
We need to re introduce SD and mask wearing, regardless of a new variant.[/quote]
You can only have restriction for so long before they are rendered untenable.
We have reached that point. Even Chris Whitty is quoted as saying that this morning.
Not to mention the harms of restrictions that everyone wants to just ignore because they are so focused on covid.
Most of the cases in the UK are in young age groups. Hospitalisations of the over 65s have actually gone down recently.
The problem with the uk is our structural vulnerability to covid in the first place - we don't have enough doctors and nurses, people are too poor to follow restrictions, people are too unhealthy to avoid getting very ill and we have a population with genetics more suseptable to covid. That means we were already fucked before the pandemic started.
You can't stop the tide anymore than you can stop a pandemic.
At most we can slow it down for a bit, but if this new one is as infectious as feared then covid passports and masks are going to make very little difference indeed.
Cases have been identified in Australia now which still has limited travel options to and from, a Belgian who has never been to Southern Africa, a case in HK in someone who was in a hotel room opposite someone who had it and 600 people from flights from SA to Amsterdam are stranded pending further tests because 61 have covid (I somehow doubt that they got on that flight without lots of the usual precautions first) and they are worried its Omincrom.
If the R is 36 like some are suggesting, virtually all restrictions including lockdowns won't touch the sides of a wave of it. This is the stark reality.
We've vaccinated a huge number of people and are cracking on with boosters. We shouldn't mandate vaccines as that creates as many problems as it solves.
There are reasonable limits as to what is actually viable and realistic. And what is achievable in the face of a mutant R36 variant.
Just cos X country has done Y doesn't mean that a) its suitable for the uk or b) would even have the desired effect in the UK.
Vaccines really were the only thing that could and can let us return to some semblence of normality.
Unfortunately we have this unrealistic idea that all deaths can be prevented. This is still to finish playing out and countries with low death rates but also low vaccine rates are still a lot more vulnerable than the UK is to this new super variant. The numbers aren't in on this yet - we may yet be grateful that we had higher circulation of Delta than others.
Honestly, I am anxious about this. I don't like it. I'm not anti-restrictions - they've not really affected my family that much all things considered. I am just realistic about where we are now and how much more can realistically be achieved, how much harm they cause and how likely they are to spark civil unrest.
We have crossed the Rubicon. There is no going back. Otherwise we could be stuck with this for years and years more without anyone having a viable answer or strategy for how we carry on as before.
Our country is structured in a way that the poor can't afford more restrictions in terms of their finances, health (both directly and indirectly from covid), their life opportunities and just quality of life generally. And the government can't just throw money at the problem in a short term way to fix or even mitigate many of those problems. In part because of a loss of trust in authority and feeling sold down river anyway. Sure you can give the NHS a tonne of money, but how does that stop millions being obese in the next 2 or 3 months where its relevant to your chances of surviving covid? Sure you can try and persuade people to change lifestyles but if they don't trust you, why would they follow your advice anyway?
Restrictions only work or are enforcable by public consent and it being high enough to maintain order. There isn't enough police / army to enforce them if people aren't willing to follow by their own free will.
If you close nightclubs, you'd get illegal raves and mass house parties. If you close pubs, people would drink at home and have friends over. If you have a curfew, you can't be everywhere. If you ban alcohol you create a blackmarket or people will mark their own.
The only thing that would actually change minds is seeing it play out badly either here or in Europe with huge numbers of deaths from covid. There has to be real fear. And even then how does that work for those who don't have the luxury of a job they can stay home for? How do you get these people to see restrictions as worthwhile for them too, when they've been exposed all day at work anyway?
Honestly. With the best will in the world, at this point in time with all the fuck ups previously and all the unique factors in the UK, on balance I think going forward there is little more to be done.
I really wish that those who harp on about restrictions most would actually face up to this and give proper answers to these crucial questions without just giving flippant responses which they like the sound of which ignore the real problems.
Yes we could have done better on somethings. No we can't change that. Nor can we magically be in a different point in the pandemic to the one we find ourselves in.