To ask if we’re heading for another lockdown?

[TreeLine6]

So covid cases are rising and like clockwork, the likes of independent sage are back in the media calling for ‘protections’ like masks, isolation and social distancing to “avoid full lockdown”.

Is it time to reintroduce some measures like the rule of 6, a cap on large events numbers and maybe distancing and early closure for hospitality as independent sage are calling for?

Personally I feel that with vaccines and treatments, we are now in the best position we’re going to get with covid and would be very reluctant to comply with further measures, that themselves cause enormous harm.

And it's always those who can least afford it who bear the brunt of cuts to pay for the inevitable shitstorm that follows.

The cost of doing nothing is expected to be borne by others as as is the doom and gloom of much higher numbers.

The cost of doing nothing is expected to be borne by others as as is the doom and gloom of much higher numbers.

This argument could only be true if restrictions, which is what we're talking about here, were actually going to keep numbers under control. As we have already seen that they don't, that nothing short of full lockdown and sometimes not even that (Holland) can stop Omicron from running amok, we know that the point you attempt to make here is wrong. It is a false equivalence.

The focus instead needs to be on measures that don't rely on futile attempts to impose behaviours on the population that have already been shown to fail. What we need is better access to Evushed, antivirals, support for those who need it to get boosters.

I don’t think it will be in my lifetime and probably not even my kids but one day the truth about covid will come out. I’ve just been to the drs and was told to put a mask on because ’covids back!’ Is the flu back as well because that suddenly disappeared for a couple of years to be replaced by ‘Covid’ 🤔

'What we need is better access to Evushed, antivirals, support for those who need it to get boosters.'

These costs will still be borne by others. Just as cost of not doing them is. Whatever we do with covid has a cost. I'd rather the cost was spent on less covid, rather than treating all the organ damage as a result. I'd also support the things you suggested, but many wouldn't. Some would say they won't help enough or what difference did it make in x, y, z country and anything else to just keep the harmful status quo. Addressing ventilation is also important.

These costs will still be borne by others. Just as cost of not doing them is. Whatever we do with covid has a cost. I'd rather the cost was spent on less covid, rather than treating all the organ damage as a result. I'd also support the things you suggested, but many wouldn't. Some would say they won't help enough or what difference did it make in x, y, z country and anything else to just keep the harmful status quo. Addressing ventilation is also important.

Again though, restrictions are not a cost that would lead to less covid, and high population adherence to any restrictions is not one of the options that we are choosing from. It doesn't much matter whether this is what we would rather.

Additionally, we actually know that vaccines work well to reduce deaths and hospitalisation on a population level. This is incontrovertible, so anyone who denies it is just wrong. This makes it quite different from mask and isolation laws, which have been shown to do no such thing. We are talking about a very successful intervention versus several that were failures.

No,flu didn’t disappear but levels of many airborne transmitted infections were significantly reduced by less mixing, more ventilation, better hand hygiene and masks. The measures to reduce the spread of Coronavirus also reduced the spread of flu.

C19 did not replace flu and this winter is likely to see the two rise side-by-side risking excessive demand on healthcare services. The rate of C19 icu admission in U.K. has doubled in past week. Other infections such as seasonal fly and RSV are also starting to rise.

Just as vaccination reduces serious illness and mortality rates, mask wearing is also incontrovertibly effective at reducing spread.

Thank you.

Just as vaccination reduces serious illness and mortality rates, mask wearing is also incontrovertibly effective at reducing spread.

Mask laws aren't. There is decent evidence, especially from earlier in the pandemic when strains were less easily transmissible, that mask wearing can help reduce the spread. Restrictions on a population level are not the same thing and did not have the same effect, particularly not against Omicron.

It's such a bizarre thread... People sharing stories of becoming very ill from covid, the deaths of loved ones and then the ignorant 'haha well bojo didn't lock down, so I'll never do it again'.

They're forgetting the white tents set up outside hospitals for the overflow of patients and that they couldn't get rid of the bodies fast enough. Remember the begging letters from foreign doctors, pleading with us to prepare, take action to avoid their situation... That Italian actor who posted from his home showing his dead sister who was grey in her bed, he'd been waiting for days for someone to pick the body up. Some people have short memories, or faulty ones.

I hope it doesn't happen yet again because I don't think the NHS could cope at all... Aren't the ambulances queuing outside hospitals as it is? Not to mention the nurses are going on strike because the clapping didn't feed their families.

Yes. Lockdowns were always the last resort here. People don't seem to realise that, or have forgotten what the death toll would have been without them. I didn't much associate daily fail readers with a more middle class venue like MN, but there you go.

If people don't think future lockdowns are a good idea, it doesn't mean they've forgotten how bad early covid was - it maybe just means they disagree with you on what to do about that.

But you cannot spend spend spend more money on more less covid! Virus has mutated and has the same death rate as flu, it’s a respiratory decease with a low death rate. What about advising on strengthening immune system?

Yet again, covid being bad is not evidence that a particular restriction is beneficial. If you're still peddling that simplistic nonsense, you've no room to call anyone else ignorant.

Covid never went away ,it will never go away it's a virus ,it will continue to go up and down ,but we have treatment, s now to enable us to go a normal life ,it's inevitable cases will rise in colder months with more people mixing indoors.

it’s a respiratory decease with a low death rate. What about advising on strengthening immune system?

It's far more than a respiratory disease as ample evidence shows, scientific evidence, just spend a bit of time researching. In particular, it affects the circulatory system, the digestive system, even the brain, everywhere else too because it is a virus that gets in through the ACE2 receptors and they are all over the body. This is an easy explanation: theconversation.com/what-is-the-ace2-receptor-how-is-it-connected-to-coronavirus-and-why-might-it-be-key-to-treating-covid-19-the-experts-explain-136928

Why do you think so many people have Long Covid and that the condition takes so many forms? It isn't just another Chronic Fatigue condition.

As for strengthening the immune system, there is no such thing as any doctor or biologist will tell you. The immune system is what it is and does what it does. It will produce antibodies against a condition if you give it a vaccination to work from but forget the idea of strengthening, you can improve your general health through a sensible diet and exercise but the rest is open to chance and the cleverness of viruses.

I do agree but you can you try to make sure the immune system is “optimal” by making sure people’s vitamin D status is sufficient. Checking iron and B12 levels are adequate as well as advising on zinc/selenium intake.

had I been BorisJ, I would have rolled out vitaminD supplements to the elderly with the LFTs.

we know the importance of metabolic health to avoid cancer and heart disease and we know it holds true for covid too.

As much as I am an advocate for lockdowns - they won’t be returning sadly

How on earth can you be sad that lockdowns won't return?

How on earth can you be sad that lockdowns won't return?

I was just thinking that myself

Oh don't you remember... the banana bread baking... the endless pastime of judging and socially shaming if Doris has taken her dog for a walk twice a day... you could time the Smiths at number 33 to make sure they only went out for 30 minutes a day and didn't eat crisps on a park bench... then you could check that the local pub was only serving substantial Scotch Eggs as a meal and grass them up to the police... and if Derek at number 57 wasn't out clapping like a seal sufficiently for the 2 minute hate (sorry Clap for Carers) you could totally shame them all over the local curtain-twitcher social media channels. And if children were even heard blocking your Zoom meetings... oh my word.

'Twas a beautiful time - for arseholes.

You know, yesterday I made the mistake of googling some of my old usernames (I've a thread about it elsewhere - god I was annoying in 2010!). Some of the spring 2020 threads came up. All joking aside, they made for fucking terrifying reading.

In one a poster was relentlessly flamed because she was disabled and couldn't do all her shopping in one weekly trip and couldn't get a delivery slot/help. She was going out three or four times a week because she had no choice. The things said about her - a medically vulnerable, disabled woman - were sickening. A poster who needed to go to four pharmacies to find one with her medication in stock was treated similarly. I also found the park bench thread as I'd posted on that one, too.

People who are sad that lockdowns won't return are the sort of people who aired their vitriol on threads like those. They clearly didn't give a shit about the upset they caused. They're welcome to their sadness.