Get rid of all restrictions

[AnEpisodeOfEastenders]

I think it's time for all restrictions to be removed. There has been plenty of time for people to be vaccinated / boosted that want to, those that can't or don't should take their own precautions.

If we test positive then we shouldn't need to isolate, shouldn't need to declare it and should just treat it as a normal cough / cold / illness. If you feel up to going to work, out to the pub, seeing friends or family then do so. Everyone I know who have had it say they feel fine.

Life has been disrupted for far too long, the costs associated are astronomical and will be a crippling debt for generations to come.

Scotland and Wales have sane leadership. They make decisions and convey them with proper messaging.

I live in Wales and this just isn't true.

Welsh government are refusing to publish the technical advice they've been given after 10 Dec.

Infection rates in Wales are no better than in England, despite the fact we've impacted the economy with harder measures.

The restrictions on outdoor gatherings meant 50 people went to watch a football game outside the other day, while 140 had to go to the pub instead. That has been widely reported and makes no sense at all.

Welsh government have stopped parkrun.

Welsh government were responsible for infant clothing (including clothing for prem infants) being unobtainable from physical shops. (I actually needed prem size infant clothing suddenly, two weeks later. Good job it was two weeks later, right?)

Which of these decisions do you think were sane and well communicated?

I have a one year old. Her social development and indeed long term health (she's not catching enough minor illnesses which is not good for the development of the immune system) are being put at risk by these idiots - for no benefit in terms of case or death rates. I'm furious. And I'm not the only one.

Yes the Welsh restrictions are ridiculous, it’s like you’re back in 2020. It’s as though we have no evidence about outdoor spread. I really can’t believe they’ve cancelled Park Run. A healthy outdoor activity. We need to be focusing on getting people healthy not the opposite.

@110APiccadilly

Scotland and Wales have sane leadership. They make decisions and convey them with proper messaging.

I live in Wales and this just isn't true.

Welsh government are refusing to publish the technical advice they've been given after 10 Dec.

Infection rates in Wales are no better than in England, despite the fact we've impacted the economy with harder measures.

The restrictions on outdoor gatherings meant 50 people went to watch a football game outside the other day, while 140 had to go to the pub instead. That has been widely reported and makes no sense at all.

Welsh government have stopped parkrun.

Welsh government were responsible for infant clothing (including clothing for prem infants) being unobtainable from physical shops. (I actually needed prem size infant clothing suddenly, two weeks later. Good job it was two weeks later, right?)

Which of these decisions do you think were sane and well communicated?

I have a one year old. Her social development and indeed long term health (she's not catching enough minor illnesses which is not good for the development of the immune system) are being put at risk by these idiots - for no benefit in terms of case or death rates. I'm furious. And I'm not the only one.

I really feel for people dealing with all this and agree with you.

I don't understand the park run decision either.

What I do feel though is that Sturgeon and Drakeford are normal politicians. Sturgeon had to apologise for taking her mask off at that funeral, and apparently Drakeford isolated from his vulnerable MIL.

Johnson set rules and then hasn't even tried to follow them. He won't wear a mask in many settings he tells others he should.

England's politics is horribly populist, a real mess. This has caused so many extra problems.

I don't think the restrictions in England are a problem at all (though I'd like to see vaccine passports go by Easter). Not sure about Northern Ireland, but I would be annoyed if I lived in Wales and parkrun couldn't go ahead because of their ridiculous limit of 50 people outside. At least it's 500 in Scotland, which seems reasonable in comparison.

@Delatron

Yes the Welsh restrictions are ridiculous, it’s like you’re back in 2020. It’s as though we have no evidence about outdoor spread. I really can’t believe they’ve cancelled Park Run. A healthy outdoor activity. We need to be focusing on getting people healthy not the opposite.

I agree but Drakeford says it's parkrun's fault for not adapting their model. How can an event such as the one in Cardiff which is usually in the high hundreds, eg 800 attendees, suddenly go down to 50?

parkrun and Welsh Athletics made the point that it is important to get people exercising and that obesity is a bigger risk factor for bad outcomes with covid, than the chances are of catching covid outside but the Senedd won't listen :(

@BootySOS

Agree. We can't have our lives put on hold and interrupted like this forever. I could get cancer next year and die. And I'd have missed out on so much to try and protect the vulnerable. But none of us are here forever and we should be living our lives to the fullest

Yep agree with this

"*Thats just it.

I am an expert in Pandemic modelling.

I can talk about this sort of thing based on many years of experience.*

Indeed. Random person on internet claims to be an expert in something 🤔 well that's credible 🙂

I do actually think the Patkrun situation was silly though. Parkruns for whatever reason didn't operate whilst I was taking part in other similar events so some of this must have been down to Parkrun rather than restrictions per se.

@Lilifer

"*Thats just it.

I am an expert in Pandemic modelling.

I can talk about this sort of thing based on many years of experience.*

Indeed. Random person on internet claims to be an expert in something 🤔 well that's credible 🙂

Even if she is, who bloody cares? The “modellers” have proved themselves time and time again at being little better than Mystic Meg at predicting the course of this pandemic. Remember when they said there would be 100,000 cases a day in the summer, and 5,000 cases a day by the end of Dec ? 😂🙄. (And lets not even mention the hospital projections). We might as well consult our horoscopes next time we want to guess what might happen next.

Besides , even if the mathematical modellers were able to accurately predict the progress of the pandemic, that would NOT qualify them to speak to how the rest of us should live our lives; how we should organise government policy to prioritise competing risks , benefits and harms, etc etc. last I checked this was a democracy and I did not vote for governance by decree of the pandemic modellers.

All this talk of “The Science” and “The Experts”, is the antithesis of good science, and politically extremely dangerous.

We know outside risk is minuscule. Just because Drakeford is putting arbitrary numbers on outdoor gatherings that make no sense, doesn’t mean these healthy activities should be stopped.

Pubs are still open. With another arbitrary ‘rule of 6’. So you can go and sit in a busy pub with no mask with lots of people indoors. But you can’t do an outdoor organised park run. Ridiculous. Park run makes no money I guess. So shortsighted.

@Northsoutheastwest76

I do actually think the Patkrun situation was silly though. Parkruns for whatever reason didn't operate whilst I was taking part in other similar events so some of this must have been down to Parkrun rather than restrictions per se.

Not entirely. A lot of parkruns sturggled to get permission to resume from the landowners- typically councils. parkrun HQ did not want to restart with a small number as they not unreasonably expected that people would travel overwhelming those events that could restart. One might well ask why councils were slow to give permission to something that benefits public health, but were happy to give permission for concerts, fayres and the like in the same spaces. Couldn't possible be to do with money could it?

last I checked this was a democracy and I did not vote for governance by decree of the pandemic modellers

Are you ok with the PM making public health decisions with no parliamentary debate in order to appease his backbenchers?

last I checked this was a democracy and I did not vote for governance by decree of the pandemic modellers

For a long time the UK has been referred to as an elective dictatorship, under our system you absolutely did vote for the PM to make whatever decisions they want and can get through parliament.

One of my colleagues (NHS) handed her notice in last month because she would rather do that than be forced to have a vaccine she doesn’t trust or want (or need).

It just shows how strongly some people feel about not having it.

It's so sad that many staff will lose their jobs because they don't want the vaccine.
I haven't the answers and I've had all the jabs myself , but losing that experience and all those good workers is devastating for the health services.

@rrhuth

last I checked this was a democracy and I did not vote for governance by decree of the pandemic modellers

For a long time the UK has been referred to as an elective dictatorship, under our system you absolutely did vote for the PM to make whatever decisions they want and can get through parliament.

Sorry what? Incoherent post.

To clarify- The PM has been democratically elected to make political decisions, with and depending on the support of government and of parliament. Yes, I have signed up for and accepted this model of government ( although I did not myself vote for the current PM).
I consider this system of government vastly preferable to governance by decree of the (unelected) pandemic modellers.

The PM has been democratically elected to make political decisions, with and depending on the support of government and of parliament.
I consider this system of government vastly preferable to governance by decree of the (unelected) pandemic modellers.

The unelected pandemic modellers are not making the decisions though, the PM is?

@Bizawit I fully agree with all you say.

The ending of the restrictions should be based on a combination of the advice of Government scientific advisors strictly in relation to Covid. They may be right or wrong- but that's who is advising the Government.

And the Government taking into account other factors such as impact on the economy/ debt / education etc. Again they may be right or wrong but they are the elected Government.

I don't think ending the restrictions should be based on the point that the majority of people are a bit fed up with the restrictions regardless of the scientific position (impact on lives lost / hospitalisations ) or Government's position (economic impact etc).

If you are going with a populist approach disregarding lives lost or economic impact, then you may as well have done that back in March 2020.

@Bizawit I fully agree with what you have just written and wish I could have written something similar so well. Thankfully more people have come round to this way of thinking too.

Unfortunately there is still a long way to go with the 'selfish/stupid/idiots' name calling brigade, who berate and sneer at people who dare to have different opinion than them.

As predicted, hospitalisations are now feeding through from the high positive case counts.

From Covid 19 AR Group (30/12):

A further update on hospitals in England with one more day of data. Over 2,000 admissions today - still ahead of @cmmid_lshtm modelling. Almost a vertical rise in NE&Yorks, up 91%. Occupancy up 68% and over 11,000 but still little increase in mechanical ventilation beds.

Key Part:

We are actually running ahead of the central estimate (LSHTM) at the start of the curve going up. This is not great news at this point in time.

twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1476603552193724417?s=20

@BambinaJAS

As predicted, hospitalisations are now feeding through from the high positive case counts.

From Covid 19 AR Group (30/12):

A further update on hospitals in England with one more day of data. Over 2,000 admissions today - still ahead of @cmmid_lshtm modelling. Almost a vertical rise in NE&Yorks, up 91%. Occupancy up 68% and over 11,000 but still little increase in mechanical ventilation beds.

Key Part:

We are actually running ahead of the central estimate (LSHTM) at the start of the curve going up. This is not great news at this point in time.

It is always good to be ahead of the curve.

Back to field hospitals that we don’t have the staff for.

All good here to lose the tiny amount of mitigations we actually have in place (as long as you don’t mind being cared for in a car park by the absolute minimum of qualified clinical staff if you need a hospital admission).