A 2-week 'circuit breaker' could be coming after Christmas

[dancingstars]

Reported by The Times and The Guardian which means another NYE stuck indoors...

@TheScenicWay it’s ridiculous really.
They say different things every minute!!

It’s odd that we’re expected to protect the nhs yet the hypocritical government can add extra pressure to it in the middle of a pandemic by mandating care workers and nhs staff to have a vaccine or lose their jobs. We’ve seen what’s happened to the care industry, now let’s sit back and see mayhem yet to come.

Boris biggest mistake was the whole freedom day slogan. As off that date in July, no more measure or restrictions. Face coverings almost halved that day.
It was fine opening up the economy but BJ should have kept face coverings and told people to remain cautious.
Instead he made false promises about no more going back, no more restrictions. He had a road map out of the pandemic.
Utter bullshit. We knew that this winter cases would rise and there was always a chance that the virus could mutate.
Boris bullshits time and time again with false hope and false promises, dangling a carrot.
Two weeks circuit breaker ? Yes right, anyone on here gullible enough to believe that?
And Savid Javid himself said last summer that lockdowns imposed a massive toll on society, cancer treatments being postponed, massive impacts on mental heath and children’s education.
We need to keep our children in education, they are our future for fucks sake. We need them to look after the country when we’re older and retired.
The NHS has almost become a covid 19 service.
Many people I know even on lower incomes are now paying a private GP just so they can see a doctor.
It’s absolutely horrendous.

'Just to put things in perspective, last night my Dad pressed his emergency button as he couldn't breathe (he has advanced COPD and heart failure). We had an apology text from the ambulance service saying there were long delays. As it happened, my brother woke up and realised my Dad had taken his oxygen off and was confused, so he put it back on and he was fine, and he was able to cancel the ambulance'

I'm sorry your dad is so poorly but tbh any automatic text to an ambulance service would seem prone to problems. Couldn't he have a call button for your db should it happen again before contacting the emergency services?

I'm well aware my post is scatty and not good English btw do anyone who reads and thinks oh my bloody God. I am quite poorly too just wanted to try and give another perspective to people that hate unvaccinated and want them refused care.

My own gp has told me to stop worrying about the vaccine we will talk about it in the new year. We want to get me better first and Ive had it now my natural immunity is far superior to any vaccine. And yes that is what she said

And also this is at a time when we have fewer hgv drivers and people in the food industry.
The labour market is already screwed, with a lack of workers.
Stand by for higher prices for food and a lack of certain foods.

'Boris biggest mistake was the whole freedom day slogan. As off that date in July, no more measure or restrictions'

Jesus.

We've had months of normality. That is a good thing.

Surely anyone should be able to grasp this would be subject to change should a highly transmissible variant come along.

LBC radio had a Doctor on just now and he sounded quite upbeat , he said basically follow the guidelines and it should be ok ( he didn't seem in favour of any circuit breakers though )
Trouble is , people won't wear masks or limit contacts and then you sort of sleepwalk into lockdowns
It's a case of persuading people to follow basic rules. Will be hard over Christmas.
He made sense , but another person may come on and it'll be a different approach altogether, who do you believe ?

Leadershit.

Easing restrictions in the summer is sensible.

I think we should (for the academic year 2022-2) tweak the school holidays so we have a longer October half term and Christmas holiday and a slightly shorter summer holiday (it's not really fair on people to do that at short notice) with a lot of leniency around holiday arrangements already made.

We seem to be facing the possibility of ongoing issues with winter infections.

Talking about irreversible steps to freedom was indeed a mistake.

The same Doctor on lbc just now was also in favour of dropping the isolation period too , maybe six days?
Or at least looking into it.

**Leadershit

Lol that made me chuckle,even though it’s so serious.

Looks like we are listening to LBC.

@PieMistee

I don't think you can expect doctors to refuse treatment to non-vaxxers imagine how much that would fuck with your head if you had to do that. Even if you were at your wits end with them. I feel like many of the anti vaxxers should be considered to have fallen for a cult and treated as such not punished for their vulnerability.

Exactly, “first do no harm”.

I'm sorry your dad is so poorly but tbh any automatic text to an ambulance service would seem prone to problems. Couldn't he have a call button for your db should it happen again before contacting the emergency services?
Thank you. No the button he has is for the care alarm (he has it because my brother works during the day) and the alarm company called him back, which is when he said he couldn't breathe and they called an ambulance. He wasn't thinking straight enough to call out for my brother, who was just upstairs. Luckily it was in the middle of the night so my brother was home and the sound of the care alarm woke him up, and he was able to help our Dad. The point really was that even though he was a priority patient struggling to breathe there was still a long wait for an ambulance, and the numbers are now doubling at a staggering rate.

This time of year has the terrible issue of being worse for many respiratory illnesses and for many other things too. Even Pre-COVID, this was viewed as a risky time of year for those isolated, it's been known for many years how much the NHS struggles even more in winter, and so on.

I can get the thinking, but saying after the 25th is a great time for a 'circuit breaker' ignores much of that, and that many of the people working to make Christmas lovely likely won't have had much time to enjoy them yet. My first selfish thought on reading the title was "so all the people working to ensure other people have a lovely Christmas period are ignored and fucked over" as many I know get little time for that til New Year. It's going to suck if ever it comes back, there really isn't going to be a perfect time for it, much less in winter when so many other risks are involved.

For me, it means few things changing as I've pretty much given up making plans at this point, but it still sucks to think about - accepting that is far better than thinking we can pick a perfect time for it that won't.

@PieMistee or they’ve decided not to have a vaccine because they are low risk/have had the virus etc.

Someone deciding not to have a particular vaccine is not ‘anti-vaxx’ this is an absolute nonsense accusation that’s being thrown around to discredit people’s perfectly valid opinions and decisions. ‘Falling for a cult?’ Utter rubbish

Boris biggest mistake was the whole freedom day slogan. As off that date in July, no more measure or restrictions
I totally agree with this - we should have come out cautiously. Scrapping face masks and distancing was crazy - such an easy thing to have kept. The miniscule number of genuinely mask-exempt people is so small it's negligible. Now people feel lied to.

@AlwaysLatte

Boris biggest mistake was the whole freedom day slogan. As off that date in July, no more measure or restrictions I totally agree with this - we should have come out cautiously. Scrapping face masks and distancing was crazy - such an easy thing to have kept. The miniscule number of genuinely mask-exempt people is so small it's negligible. Now people feel lied to.

The countries that kept them and ‘came out cautiously’ haven’t done so well, so your argument kind of flops there.

The biggest is - where now?

We were told 'just three months of lockdown' and we will beat this.

Then another three, and another.

Then just a bit more to 'save Christmas'.

Then get a vaccine.

The vaccines are key.

If you have two.

And then you need a booster.

And now we are locking down again.

A virus has taken ooohh...three months or so to beat our best defence...

So.

Where to next?

@EmKayEm you list is very simplistic.

We are in the same position as everyone else.

No one has a crystal ball, they can only deal with things as they arise so yes, vaccines were working but this variant needs a booster too. Would you rather the experts just shrugged their shoulders and didn't suggest anything in the face of a changing situation?!

In Scotland we didn’t scrap mask wearing and our cases are surging so not sure it would have worked anyways. Of course they also had COP 26 which was a massive mistake IMO

[quote JaniieJones]@EmKayEm you list is very simplistic.

We are in the same position as everyone else.

No one has a crystal ball, they can only deal with things as they arise so yes, vaccines were working but this variant needs a booster too. Would you rather the experts just shrugged their shoulders and didn't suggest anything in the face of a changing situation?![/quote]
I would rather they looked at the data coming out of SA showing that hospitalisations decreased by 91% without any additional restrictions and not rush into any rash decisions.

@bumbleymummy

Of course, Al Johnson is not known for rushing into rash decisions...