To think the Gov’t are ‘letting it rip’

[Tillsforthrills]

The rules that double jabbed household members of a positive case don’t need to isolate when more and more people are being reinfected even with boosters.

The rule that children don’t need to SI if their parents have it: spreading to teachers, early years workers and their families as well as their peers.

If they truly wanted to halt the spread, they would not have those ridiculous rules.

Letting it spread will let us get to that "herd immunity". This is what viruses do, it's evolved to infect more people, it's milder, this is the quickest way for everyone to be exposed to it. And yes there can be more mutated versions in the future, but this one has something like 50 mutations to the spike protein - and it's STILL milder - I don't believe at all that we will see a more deadly mutation emerge.

The OP isn't asking for a full lockdown, just sensible rules to slow the spread! Sending kids to school/going to work is madness when their are positive cases in the home! If they just asked households to isolate when there is a positive member the numbers would decrease drastically!

I think we’re all going to get it sooner or later so the idea of keeping safe is more last year - vaccine plus booster will help of course

It’s so transmissible it will spread quickly

You could stay home now and over Christmas to avoid it maybe if you wanted to personally

If they just asked households to isolate when there is a positive member the numbers would decrease drastically

But then everyone would be at home!

Who would staff the hospitals, schools, government, shops, etc??

@TheVampiresWife

Omicron has an incubation period of two days or less, and it's super transmissible. By the time you know you have it, you'll have likely already infected tens or hundreds of people, even if you're only doing fairly ordinary stuff like going to the supermarket.

T&T is a bit pointless with Omicron, because the incubation period is so short. If you're a contact, by the time they get in touch with you you'll likely have been infected for days (and possibly even recovered).

Given all this, there doesn't seem to be any option but to 'let it rip'. Unless you tell everyone to stay at home and go absolutely nowhere for two months, it's going to spread like wildfire.

Thank goodness so many people have some form of immunity at this point, and that this didn't happen last winter. It doesn't bear thinking about really.

I'm now off to scrub myself with wire wool for using both 'let it rip' and 'spread like wildfire' in the same post

Absolutely agree with this. Especially about the self flagellation part

But not everyone in the household catches it. I was the only person in my household to not get it so I went to work. I’d have been absolutely livid if I had to isolate for ten days, lose ten days of pay for absolutely nothing. We cannot keep shutting healthy people away ‘just incase’.

I have been 100% compliant with every rule and regulation, every lockdown and restriction. But enough is enough now. I have almost had a complete mental breakdown and left my career in nursing due to the horrendous pressure I was put under as a manager of a care home at the start of the pandemic.

Lockdowns were meant to be the short answer whilst vaccines and treatments were developed and studied. This has been going on for 2 years now. The emergency stage response (ie strict lockdowns and restrictions) should have passed. One school in our area moved to online learning last week-no outbreak, just risk of Omicron. It is grossly unfair and short sighted to think schools is only about the facts you can cram into a child's head. What about socialising skills and emotional development amongst peers? It makes me sad this is where we are still at.

I will do as I am told but surely there can be really no circumstances to justify further lockdowns-people can make the choice individually of course. There has to be a distinction between living and existing.

@Whatdidisay

The OP isn't asking for a full lockdown, just sensible rules to slow the spread! Sending kids to school/going to work is madness when their are positive cases in the home! If they just asked households to isolate when there is a positive member the numbers would decrease drastically!

They really wouldn't! And everything would literally stop!

We need to be able to move with the times. Omicrom is not Delta and we need to be able to adapt to living with Omicrom.

That doesn't mean that we don't try and slow the spread. That is what we are doing with boosters. But we can't take lots of healthy people out of their daily lives.

@Cheesefiend36

Letting it spread will let us get to that "herd immunity". This is what viruses do, it's evolved to infect more people, it's milder, this is the quickest way for everyone to be exposed to it. And yes there can be more mutated versions in the future, but this one has something like 50 mutations to the spike protein - and it's STILL milder - I don't believe at all that we will see a more deadly mutation emerge.

What makes you think herd immunity can be reached with covid-19 ?

Virus gonna virus

Hardly. They've advised everyone to work from home and made masks mandatory.

50% of people working from home, wearing masks in every public building, DCs off school, makes it much harder to catch anything.

The odds only rise when I choose to go to someone's house, or eat out. And after 21 months, I know not to do that. So if I catch anything, it would probably be as a result of my actions. No?

@fournonblondes

Let it rip should be replaced with living with the virus.

Absolutely this. And ‘ Let it Rip’ as an expression should be consigned to the dustbin along with all the other dramatic phrases used during this pandemic.

@MintJulia

Lots of young children still attending nursery this week. With parents with positive cases or siblings at home.

@Tillsforthrills

The government have been clever here knowing the havoc that will be caused by letting it spread freely with no SI rules and letting people have parties, attend events.

Lockdown by stealth so that they don’t have to help any businesses or industries financially.

That’s what it’s really about.

Not really more and more people are asymptomatic or don't have the symptoms that mandate a test. I think their hope is people have had enough so they won't test and a significant proportion of cases won't be detected. People will isolate this week for Xmas I doubt it will be the same next week

You can't self isolate every time someone is positive in case they get it. We have vaccinations now! Life has to go on...

Only 25% of workers can wfh. Mainly the comfortable middle classes who obviously still expect to get their deliveries etc.

@RobinPenguins

It’s not putting the economy first, it’s putting society first. Unless you think it would be ok for public transport systems to collapse due to lack of staffing (because they’re all isolating at home even though they don’t have covid) meaning hospital workers can’t get to work. Or power supplies. Or delivery networks. Or utilities. Or people’s wages getting paid. Or people’s ability to get money from the bank. Or their bins to be emptied, their streets to be cleaned, their dead to be buried.

It’s not March 2020. The harm/benefit judgements have changed and isolating causes more harms.

Totally agree @RobinPenguins

@Tillsforthrills

Yes I agree and ones that are vulnerable or have vulnerable family members will pay the cost unfortunately, people like teachers won’t have the option to ‘choose’ to SI to protect themselves/their families.

Well most of the rest of the population don’t have the choice either. Only about 25% of the population can work from home at all. How many CEV, unvaccinated not by their own choice or 70+ teachers are there? I’d be happy to support some kind of shielding for them. But the rest of them have to get on with it now, as my teacher DH does and how all our other friends and relatives who can’t wfh either have to.

I really dislike the current government for many reasons but I think that by now we all need to make “common sense” decisions for ourselves rather than expect to be given stringent rules to follow slavishly.

How many threads have we seen here recently with people stating they have "had enough" and are going to carry on with life as "normal" (i.e. pre-Covid)? Large numbers of people already ignoring the laws and guidance.

If the rules are tightened most of the people who are already behaving sensibly will carry on doing that, while everyone else totally ignores those rules.

Even the current rules are being ignored by many people - I got abuse the other week for suggesting gently that maybe people could wear masks in the (take away only) KFC seeing as the law has changed to make it mandatory in shops. I go in some supermarkets and fewer than half the customers are masked.

A local ASDA has put boxes of disposables on the security desk by the entrance for customers who have forgotten to bring one, and I reckon around 1/3 of people take one as they came out shopping without a mask, even though the law changed a while back.

So, no Boris supporter here, but what's the point in tightening the rules when people can't even stick to the ones we have now?

Out of interest how are all those things you've mentioned going to function if they are all off with covid at the same time?

Not every contact develops covid. So if 3/5 in a household get it and have to isolate, that’s still less than 5/5 having to isolate under the old isolating rules.

I’d actually like to see isolating for 10 days for mild positive cases binned off too. We don’t do this for anything else. I don’t know anyone who’s been ill for more than 3 or 4 days with covid, but they have to stay off work for 10. Obviously some people are ill longer and should have as much time off as they need to recover. People staying at home (and supported to do that) while they’re ill. Everyone else working and doing their bit. That’s the only way we can keep functioning.

It peaks pretty quickly so it will be over before you know it, I do hope this marks the end of the pandemic which a few experts have said will be done by Spring.

Remmy123 you do realise that Omicron is affecting the vaccinated don't you?

@Rahra

But not everyone in the household catches it. I was the only person in my household to not get it so I went to work. I’d have been absolutely livid if I had to isolate for ten days, lose ten days of pay for absolutely nothing. We cannot keep shutting healthy people away ‘just incase’.

I agree with this.

My primary school aged DS had covid a few weeks ago, was home for 10 days, and neither DH or I caught it. Only half of his class at school got it, even though kids some were coming home with symptoms so obviously contagious in the class. Only two of the parents caught covid out of 14 kids in class who had it. My nieces and nephews have also had covid, and none of their parents have caught it. It’s nowhere near a certainty that if one person in a house catches covid, then all will catch it.

“ Lockdown by stealth so that they don’t have to help any businesses or industries financially. ”

I agree - I favour people being able to make decisions for their circumstances to a greater extent, but where that means that hospitality etc will lose enormous amounts of revenue there needs to be a mechanism for them to be supported until cases drop and people are more likely to venture out again