So happy tests are to be axed

[Wizzbangfizz]

So according to reports they are going to stop handing out LFT and will be stopping mass testing - this is excellent news for both the tax payer and the environment and surely marks a clear path this whole thing becoming endemic

@sashagabadon

My personal view is that we are fairing relatively well now compared to many other European nations is a direct result our “freedom day”. We’ve just spread out our cases over a longer period and in the warmer summer / autumn months . Just as “freedom day” was designed to do and as Whitty and Valance and yes even Boris said. I think that was why England in particular was able to take a bit of a gamble with Christmas etc as we already had cases in the bag so to speak. Omnicron did throw a bit of a spanner in the works but luckily Boris kept the faith with plan B for England and it’s so far paying off.

You think we're faring well? Dear God.

@Delatron

Equally confused about France. They are not doing ‘better’ and have had stricter restrictions. Yet higher cases.

But are they counting reinfections?

I hate to break to all of you that no one knows what the rates are in England as reinfections are not being counted.

I believe most countries are struggling with shortages of tests. Certainly we are in ROI, you can't get a test for love nor money, so rates are much, much higher than billed here also.

I hate to break to all of you that no one knows what the rates are in England as reinfections are not being counted.

I hate to break to you that noone knows what the rates are anywhere in the world because Omicron is so infectious and testing systems are so stretched that actual rates are likely to be well in excess of 'official' rates.

The free LF testing in the U.K. (which isn't on offer in ROI or France) must be identifying lots of asymptomatic cases there that won't be being picked up elsewhere.

@Wreath21

But then again, the ruling class would rather do absolutely anything (especially if there is a good old-fashioned punitive aspect to it) than give poorer people more money. Unfortunately they were backed up, to a dangerous extent, by the left of centre people who have always been more interested in controlling the lower orders for their own good, and who think that virtue is to be found in dedicating yourself to joyless drudgery and a 'simple' life...

What absolute drivel. Nobody backed anyone into a corner, the Tories have an 80 seat majority.

Backed UP as in supported, not backed into a corner. Lots of supposed progressives were snivelling along along with the guff about 'making sacrifices' and 'all in it together, and happily snitching on their neighbours if they saw anyone leaving the house more than once a day.

Remember all the bawling and scolding over the 'VE Day street parties' which resulted in...no outbreaks or surges of infection at all? And the frothing fury about the peasants daring to go to the beach? Which equally resulted in no infection surges at all, because COVID IS AIRBORNE and therefore much less likely to spread outdoors...

I hate to break to all of you that no one knows what the rates are in England as reinfections are not being counted.

It doesn’t matter how many cases we have as long as they are not resulting in hospitalisation/deaths.

I hate to break to all of you that no one knows what the rates are in England as reinfections are not being counted.

But is it really the number of cases (many asymptomatic or mild) that we should focus on? Isn't it hospitalisations and the impact on the health system that matters?

The minute we stop announcing the daily case rate will not come a day too soon. Yes there’s lots of people getting Covid twice. Yes lots of people currently have omicron.

We need to focus on hospitalisations (and not people incidentally picking up Covid when they’re win for a broken leg) and deaths.

@Wreath21

Lockdowns were never really a public health measure. They were based on superstition and moral panic. There are a lot of people who feel on some dumbfuck atavistic level that there has to be punishment and sacrifice (usually for other people) in order to keep 'us' safe. For many governments, they were an excellent opportunity to award themselves extra powers and to profiteer but even more benign governments found them somewhat appealing (perhaps, to be fair, in some cases it was more a matter of not being brave enough to reject the concept because there was so much gibbering moral panic globally - if you didn't cage your population and strip away their rights you didn't care enough).

All lockdowns can do is slow down transmission. They just defer the problem while exacerbating other problems, particularly inequality.

Well said!!

👏 @Wreath21 well said

I don't think the government will want to focus on today's hospitalisations and deaths somehow.

@rrhuth

I don't think the government will want to focus on today's hospitalisations and deaths somehow.

Why would they? It's not like they're anywhere near as high as a year ago.

We're moving on as a country, perhaps you should too.

We're moving on as a country, perhaps you should too.

I was only saying the government will be wanting to keep pretty quiet if deaths are up in the 300s regularly. That is a significant number of people.

I don't think the government will want to focus on today's hospitalisations and deaths somehow.

Why would they? Considering how high the cases are, hospitalisations and deaths are relatively low!

We might be testing for a while yet!

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-inside-the-uk-warehouse-with-tens-of-millions-of-lateral-flow-tests-ready-to-go-12513106

Testing can stop any time, people just have to choose to!

@Wreath21

Backed UP as in supported, not backed into a corner. Lots of supposed progressives were snivelling along along with the guff about 'making sacrifices' and 'all in it together, and happily snitching on their neighbours if they saw anyone leaving the house more than once a day.

Remember all the bawling and scolding over the 'VE Day street parties' which resulted in...no outbreaks or surges of infection at all? And the frothing fury about the peasants daring to go to the beach? Which equally resulted in no infection surges at all, because COVID IS AIRBORNE and therefore much less likely to spread outdoors...

Right at the start, there WERE surges following that Liverpool football match (spectators outdoors) and that horse racing event (spectators outdoors).

Re the VE day and beach scenes, etc., they happened at a time of low infection rates, so very few people would have been infectious on the day, so there wouldn't have been widespread surges.

1 infectious person at Anfield will lead only to maybe a handful of infections. 100 infectious people at Anfield, will lead to hundreds of infections.

It's the number of infectious people at an event/place that determines the spread. A huge gathering at a time of really low infection rates won't lead to anything, but that same gathering when high proportions of attendees are infectious will result in a surge.

The Cheltenham race meeting: there were a few reports afterwards of hospitality staff being told to show up to work even if they were unwell, which is likely to have been a factor in the spreading. This was also the time of absolute peak spread (what with the government having, you know, refused to do anything about people arriving back in the UK from holidays in known hotspots).
However there was an awful lot of whining and screaming about beach trips that summer, and abuse of people who planned days out, all encouraged by the government...

Right at the start, there WERE surges following that Liverpool football match (spectators outdoors) and that horse racing event (spectators outdoors)

Those events are not all outdoors.

At a football stadium everyone passes through indoor areas, stairways, etc. the bars/food stands are all indoors.

Cheltenham is not all indoors. There is a lot of congregating in bars both at the race course during the day and in town in the evening.

@rrhuth

We're moving on as a country, perhaps you should too.

I was only saying the government will be wanting to keep pretty quiet if deaths are up in the 300s regularly. That is a significant number of people.

It is, and I don’t want anyone to die from Covid but many of those are people who have chosen not to get the vaccine so I don’t think you can make policy around those numbers.

@CorneliusVetch
I don't know if that is sensible policy though, because those very ill are still taking up a high percentage of health resources and the costs of ongoing treatment are very high.

Plus the scale of infections amongst the vaccinated are very burdensome, and not without significant risks.

We are living with very poor policy decisions, which are impacting quality of life for all of us. Being uncaring towards the unvaccinated isn't liberating the rest of us, it is just dragging the whole country down.