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

[dancingstars]

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

Could have an interesting effect politically, given that Johnson and his cronies have pinned their colours so firmly to the mask of vaccination being the answer to everything when it turns out that maybe that's not the case.

But I think everything depends on how the NHS is coping.

Why not impose a lockdown on the unvaccinated?

My heart just sank when I saw the earlier post suggesting that shielding might be back.

And if it does, then I think we do have to consider locking down the unvaccinated as well.

Because the rationale for shielding was never just to be nice and protective towards those with underlying conditions. It was to stop then filling the hospitals - there are around 200,000 people living with blood cancer and if they all got it in the space of a month or so, and 40% needed hospital, then that's no-one else getting much treatment fir anything - and they won't be just left to die because these are youngish, otherwise healthy people so good candidates for ICU too.

So if it's ok to protect everyone by telling them to remove themselves from society, then it's ok to take measures to keep other groups that are at higher risk of moderate and severe disease than the general popuiation, out of circulation too.

But what about those who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons? Well, those asked to shield didn't choose to have medical reasons either

Not sure how 2 weeks would work, I think it would have to be at least 4, maybe even six...

The NHS has been under sustained pressure and ICU is currently at 96% capacity

As it is every winter.

*3) WTF does 'move forward' mean? Leave the NHS to get overwhelmed so there is a wider health shutdown - how does that impact all other conditions such as cancer, heart attacks etc?

My position is that if this were to happen, it's the NHS's job to start triaging by "vaccine refusal status" as an emergency measure, and in the meantime build up healthcare capacity for next winter. The UK cannot go on like this year after year*

This wins most ill informed comment of the year award. You obviously have no idea how the health service works. What next not treating smokers COPD or obese type 2 diabetics ?

Vaccines probably would be the answer if the uptake was bigger.

As it stands our itu is currently filled with the unvaccinated (80%) and the rest are immunosuppressed.

I couldn’t care less about the unvaccinated, they took their choice, but feel very sorry for those who don’t have the choice (cancer patients etc).

Definitely within the LA the message changed yesterday as schools here started the Christmas break.

Much more emergency planning for January, emphasis on planning for lack of staff in council services including schools resulting in closure and non delivery of care.

@Ceramide

The worry is a lot of people are so (rightly) pissed off at this government they won’t comply.

Keir Starmer said a couple of days ago that Labour would be following the same COVID strategy as the Tories, so the non-compliance is meaningless.

No what he said was that that Labour would follow the science and support the hospitality sector.

all around Europe, with far lowere Delta and Omicron cases, they are shutting sectors down, we with v hi levels, have once again acted too slowly.

Why not impose a lockdown on the unvaccinated?

That penalises people like me, who is still suffering from 2 doses of AZ. Idk what the next one will do. Perhaps make me permanently bedridden. Do you think the medical profession cares about people like me?!

@Lollipop999

Vaccines probably would be the answer if the uptake was bigger.

As it stands our itu is currently filled with the unvaccinated (80%) and the rest are immunosuppressed.

I couldn’t care less about the unvaccinated, they took their choice, but feel very sorry for those who don’t have the choice (cancer patients etc).

UK is 90 percent vaccinated. 46 percent of over 12s have had 3 jabs and they are doing 1.5% plus a day now. Realistically , how much bigger of an uptake can you expect? The issue is that the NHS hasn't got the capacity to deal with even small numbers of unvaccinated cases.

@RubyViolet But there isn't the staff - that was the whole reason why the nightingales were just theatre.

@Mummyoflittledragon Ultimately no, the needs of individuals don't control population wide health protection measures.

@Kokeshi123

3) WTF does 'move forward' mean? Leave the NHS to get overwhelmed so there is a wider health shutdown - how does that impact all other conditions such as cancer, heart attacks etc?

My position is that if this were to happen, it's the NHS's job to start triaging by "vaccine refusal status" as an emergency measure, and in the meantime build up healthcare capacity for next winter. The UK cannot go on like this year after year.

Wtf

"Why not impose a lockdown on the unvaccinated?"

We don't have the infrastructure to police that and it would need to be policed.
Shielding was never compulsory or policed so it cannot really be said that if one can be done so can the other.

Well our big family do is on the 28th due to allowing space from school break up so I'll be ignoring any restrictions that exist then since we've all done the sensible thing

@neveradullmoment99
"Children are 20% more likely to be hospitalised with this variant."

Where did you get this info, please?

@tangyandsalty

The NHS has been under sustained pressure and ICU is currently at 96% capacity

As it is every winter.

This is a (deliberate?) misrepresentation.

Yes the NHS is under pressure every year - but it was under hugely greater pressure last year and, due to Omicron, has the potential to be even worse this year.

Pretending covid has made no difference is a way of denying the reality of covid and what we are dealing with. This graph is a useful visual guide: twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1469427334784634889 (clue: the big lump, much bigger than every other year, was caused by covid).

"Ultimately no, the needs of individuals don't control population wide health protection measures."

The needs of individuals do still have to be considered because the equality act hasn't gone anywhere.

Until we stop hoarding vaccine/patents then this will be inevitable.

As long as we allow the majority of the world to continue without even one vaccine we'll have wave after wave of new variants.

[quote FrazzledCareerWoman]@neveradullmoment99
"Children are 20% more likely to be hospitalised with this variant."

Where did you get this info, please? [/quote]
Percentages are highly misleading for children as the baseline is tiny. An increase of 20 children will show as a huge percentage.

Hadn't seen this rubbish graph of London hospitalisations, this is why the 'Omicron is mild' thing is so dangerous - hospitalisations are risng more than expected?
twitter.com/OYCar/status/1471568961649086473

I’m so so sick of the whole thing now. I’m a TA and most of our staff (all bar 1) are desperate for schools to be back in January and not at all concerned about Covid. What we are concerned about is the education and mental well being of our children. I’m in Y2 with children who are like Nursery/Reception children, they can’t sit still, they can’t read, they can’t write and can’t do basic maths all because they missed out so much learning in Reception and Y1.
We cannot keep “locking down” like this for every single variant.

That’s not what medicine is all about. They don’t refuse lung cancer treatment to smokers, heart disease treatment for the obese, trauma surgery for people who injure themselves doing extreme sports and so on. As a society, we are better than that.

The difference is that obesity-related hospitalizations don't surge wildly at a particular time of year, infect HCWs with obesity-related illnesses and threaten to cause the system to collapse. Also, obesity is caused by a bunch of complex causes. "Not being vaccinated" isn't.

I don't much like the idea of triaging either, but it's not actually any more unethical than vaccine passports, lockdowns, depriving kids of education, confining people to their homes or forbidding people from seeing their relatives. We've already done those things. A few years ago, we all would have thought they were unthinkable too. I can remember people whispering in hushed voices on here about the idea of vaccine passports and "no way, that is TOTALLY unethical." And yet, here we are, and they've been normalized, whether that's a good thing or not (probably not).

Trust me, vaccine triaging/billing-for-care will come if the situation doesn't improve. It doesn't exactly make me thrilled either, but inevitably countries will start experimenting sooner or later, unless omicron really does turn out to be a damp squib.

@Ceramide

The worry is a lot of people are so (rightly) pissed off at this government they won’t comply.

Keir Starmer said a couple of days ago that Labour would be following the same COVID strategy as the Tories, so the non-compliance is meaningless.

I'm not sure people will be non-compliant in order to show their allegiance to Labour rather than the Tories! They'll be non-compliant in the sense of having friends and family round anyway, which will probably be quite meaningful to them.

"Why not impose a lockdown on the unvaccinated?"

We don't have the infrastructure to police that and it would need to be policed

Correct

Shielding was never compulsory or policed

Correct

so it cannot really be said that if one can be done so can the other

Yes it can, if what you are saying it that these people need to be removed from ordinary circulation because of the threat they pose to the whole. This evening told to shield overwhelmingly did so without need for compulsion (for there was a self interest there too) and society was OK with millions of people being in a form of lockdown. A different form of lockdown would be needed for a group where there was less expectation of voluntary compliance.

But when there are so many reports that 80% of those needing ICU are unvaccinated, and the remaining 20% are those who are highly immune suppressed, then taking this effort people put of general circulation would have a disproportionate effect on NHS and therefore for society in general.

And if it's OK to shut away the shielded, then it's time to do similar for the much larger group as well.

Remember as well - shielding had no age categories, and the people asked to shield weren't generally moribund or dependant (though some were), so the economic effect of taking them out isn't unusually low or insignificant

I don't think what is being asked of the shielded is really ever considered when people trot out the 'isolate them' ideas. If it's wrong to isolate people who have chosen not to take steps to make themselves less likely to fill up ICUs, then why is OK to condemn those who can't help it to ongoing isolation and all its consequences?