More stringent measures next week?

[AchillesLastStand]

From the Guardian just now:

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/10/stringent-uk-covid-measures-needed-within-a-week-leak-reveals

Act cautiously now and hope for a fast relaxation if it's as mild as hoped

And if it’s not, then what? Stay locked down until we’ve developed and produced and rolled out a new omicron-specific variant? Four, five months? As a result of which more people are prevented from infection, which is great for omicron but means they’ll be more vulnerable to the next variant. So lock down for that one, and the next one, and the next one, until… when?

@GoldenOmber

Act cautiously now and hope for a fast relaxation if it's as mild as hoped

And if it’s not, then what? Stay locked down until we’ve developed and produced and rolled out a new omicron-specific variant? Four, five months? As a result of which more people are prevented from infection, which is great for omicron but means they’ll be more vulnerable to the next variant. So lock down for that one, and the next one, and the next one, until… when?

So what's your plan? Hope for the best and how many deaths we end up with?

@Sally090807

The NHS will always be overwhelmed, the population is forever increasing, over the past 5 years it’s gone up over 3 million. My mum needed an ambulance around November 2018 and even then she was kept in an ambulance for nearly 40 minutes then in a corridor for 3 hours while they waited for a bed to come available.

Not according to the UN or ONS, its a 1m rise since 2018, but is predicted to fall over the next 10 years, as more people die than are being born.

Other countries don't have overwhelmed health services, so why do we?

You can’t hide away for ever single variant for the rest of your lives, that’s not living at all.

There isn’t an option to avoid lots of deaths forever.If omicron is going to cause that then all that locking down this winter would do is push them into spring. Or, absolute best case scenario, push them into the next variant.

So my plan would be accepting that, rather than kidding ourselves that if we all just Stay The Fuck At Home now we can make covid disappear. Instead, ficus on what we can do to mitigate the damage, and right now the best bet for that looks like dialling up the booster rollout.

@GoldenOmber

Act cautiously now and hope for a fast relaxation if it's as mild as hoped

And if it’s not, then what? Stay locked down until we’ve developed and produced and rolled out a new omicron-specific variant? Four, five months? As a result of which more people are prevented from infection, which is great for omicron but means they’ll be more vulnerable to the next variant. So lock down for that one, and the next one, and the next one, until… when?

...so take the hit, let 100s of 1000s die (at home & in CH) in the hope that natural immunity makes us less susceptible to new variants?

Whilst this happens, people don't go out, so economy tanks anyway.

Good plan.

@Sally090807

The NHS will always be overwhelmed, the population is forever increasing, over the past 5 years it’s gone up over 3 million. My mum needed an ambulance around November 2018 and even then she was kept in an ambulance for nearly 40 minutes then in a corridor for 3 hours while they waited for a bed to come available.

As a population we have been manipulated to think we can't have a fully functioning health service and it is inevitable it will be constantly unable to cope with demand.

That's an excuse to justify lack of investment in health (including mental health) and social care.

We are an extremely rich first world nation with a largely efficient health service which, with enough money and resources, and a joined up, fully funded social care system, would be fit for purpose.

However, having been systematically under funded and under resourced, it simply does not have sufficient excess capacity to cope with extra bursts of demand.

A health service that cannot cope with normal winter demands which occur every year has absolutely not been enabled to cope with pandemics.

Having a health service such as this is a choice not an inevitability.

Stop accepting the bullshit this government keeps feeding us!!!!!

actually that is of course able to find

It will take three months to tweak a vaccine for Omicron.

I agree with PP. Absolutely just let Omicron run its course. I've just said this on another thread, after Omicron there will be another variant, and then another and then another. Each new one appears to be more resistant to our vaccines, so we're going to be constantly chasing new vaccines and in a state of lockdown half the year, every year forever.

Not happening. We've done lockdowns for nearly two years. All the do is stop the inevitable at the expense of people lives, livelihoods, jobs, houses and mental health. Not to mention the impact on the kids constantly being taken out of school.

So yes, absolutely, nothing else has worked so we stick to soft measures, masks, handwashing, maybe some social distancing and we ride it out. That is 100% better than spending the rest of our lives in lockdown. Anyone who thinks differently can just not leave the house anymore of their own accord and not ruin the rest of the country's lives in the process

I don’t think America is a good example of a health care system that works. They basically have no health care for the poor and excellent health care for those who can afford it. As much as the NHS is barely working at least at its inception it was catering for everyone.

Prevent the inevitable for a little while not stop.

I work in a large acute hospital and we have ambulances queuing for hours outside and lots of beds inside full of medically fit old people who can't be discharged because they need an adequate package of care that is not available.

So the medically fit but frail 90 year old lies in the hospital bed getting frailer and less mobile by the hour, while the fit and healthy 50 year old who has sudden heart issues can't have a bed.

a lockdown in the winter months,
all outside in the warmer weather.
vaccines
life changes

@Autumndays123

I agree with PP. Absolutely just let Omicron run its course. I've just said this on another thread, after Omicron there will be another variant, and then another and then another. Each new one appears to be more resistant to our vaccines, so we're going to be constantly chasing new vaccines and in a state of lockdown half the year, every year forever.

Not happening. We've done lockdowns for nearly two years. All the do is stop the inevitable at the expense of people lives, livelihoods, jobs, houses and mental health. Not to mention the impact on the kids constantly being taken out of school.

So yes, absolutely, nothing else has worked so we stick to soft measures, masks, handwashing, maybe some social distancing and we ride it out. That is 100% better than spending the rest of our lives in lockdown. Anyone who thinks differently can just not leave the house anymore of their own accord and not ruin the rest of the country's lives in the process

That’s too black and white in its thinking. I think they’ll come a point where the vulnerable will be protected by vaccines and the young will have natural immunity. We have to get to that point though and that’s where we’re at at the moment. Trying to protect the old and the vulnerable. People grandparents, those ;like my partner) with chronic health problems. Those people contribute to society. They work. They perform caring duties. Don’t throw them all under the bus.

let 100s of 1000s die (at home & in CH)

But there isn’t an option to avoid deaths, if that requires preventing them from ever getting COVID. We do not have the power to do that. Our options, realistically, are:

• lock down now, unlock in spring, postpone deaths into spring;
• lock down now and wait until everyone’s been vaccinated with an omicron-specific vaccine that does not yet exist, postpone deaths into next variant wave;
• lock down for every new wave until the end of time, postponing deaths until whichever point people end up catching it anyway, at the massive cost of all the harms lockdowns cause.

There is not Magical Option D: lock down now and then COVID goes away and nobody ever has to die from it. There never, ever was. All we could ever do was lock down for a while, with all the harm that caused, to buy time for vaccines and prevent everyone getting infected for tzar first time all at once. We have succeeded in that.

we need carers and care packages
care agencies are in dire straits - increase their wages, let their hours be more family friendly - treat them better, with more respect

@MrsLargeEmbodied

a lockdown in the winter months, all outside in the warmer weather. vaccines life changes

Won't be happening. I won't be making any life changes or only socialising outdoors for the rest of my life and I can honestly say I do not know a single person who would do this either.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

a lockdown in the winter months, all outside in the warmer weather. vaccines life changes

I know some people want this on here but I doubt it.

the issues are excess deaths

@FreeBritnee

It will take three months to tweak a vaccine for Omicron.

And then produce it in large numbers, and then inject it into people, and you’re at six months in the most optimistic of timeframes.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

we need carers and care packages care agencies are in dire straits - increase their wages, let their hours be more family friendly - treat them better, with more respect

Yes. We have needed this for years but it’s becoming increasingly obvious to even the most oblivious of politicians now, surely? A proper care system, with enough staff to meet needs.

@freeBritnee sorry but protecting the vulnerable was the point of the lock nearly two years ago. We did that, we made sacrifices and I'm done doing that. Why are we destroying the lives of so many people to protect those, who as a PP said, will likely succumb to the next variant anyway?

Do people really think covid will just disappear? Or do they really think there will be a vaccine found that works against all variants? That is unfortunately not how vaccines work

@IamGusFring

Yet no one has been hospitalised with it or have died yet ......

With covid.... Do you live under a rock ?

@GoldenOmber

let 100s of 1000s die (at home & in CH)

But there isn’t an option to avoid deaths, if that requires preventing them from ever getting COVID. We do not have the power to do that. Our options, realistically, are:

• lock down now, unlock in spring, postpone deaths into spring;
• lock down now and wait until everyone’s been vaccinated with an omicron-specific vaccine that does not yet exist, postpone deaths into next variant wave;
• lock down for every new wave until the end of time, postponing deaths until whichever point people end up catching it anyway, at the massive cost of all the harms lockdowns cause.

There is not Magical Option D: lock down now and then COVID goes away and nobody ever has to die from it. There never, ever was. All we could ever do was lock down for a while, with all the harm that caused, to buy time for vaccines and prevent everyone getting infected for tzar first time all at once. We have succeeded in that.

No one ever said there was a magical option to avoid all deaths.

But there is the option to try to slow the rate of infections so that the small % that need hospitalisation (remembering that a small % of a big number is still a big number) can actually get treatment. And so that the heart attacks, strokes, RTAs and broken bones etc can also still get treatment.

Truly overwhelming the NHS doesn't just mean patients on trolleys waiting for beds, it means hard decisions being made about who to treat and who not to treat.

I can't see anyone really following the rules now or any kind of ' plan '
I really can't :(