DeanoL

I really don't trust this government enough to be comfortable with them stopping publishing figures.

Is that common though? I genuinely don't know, just trying to understand if there's much point to this or if it's the government again doing something just to be seen to be doing something. (Incidentally, both myself and my mother tested negative on day 9 with one of the older throat and nose swab tests, and positive on day 10 with one of the new "both nostrils" tests - I'd assume those latter tests are more sensitive - an unreported reason why isolation will have gone up)

I think it was almost inevitably linked to the Wuhan lab in some way. It'd be a hell of a coincidence if not, for a Coronavirus outbreak to start right next to the world's biggest lab for studying Coronavirus. Just there's a hell of a leap from "escaped in a lab accident" to "was being bioengineered as a weapon". If you're China of course you'd want to cover it up if it all turns out to be your fault because being responsible for it is really bad, but it doesn't mean you were engineering a virus to kill people.

Isn't daily or every other day testing still compulsory for healthcare people though? I feel like that's the biggest issue we have at the moment - that lack of supply issue for hospitals, rather than high demand. If it doesn't tackle that it's just pushing at the corners.

Does this help much? With the health care isolation issue thing? I was still getting positive LFTs for over even the 10s days. Are people really contracting it on Day 0, getting a positive LFT, then on days 4 and 5 it's already cleared up and they're negative? I mean maybe the vaccine/anitbodies really do work that well in people? Or is this solely to deal with someone getting a false positive test, in which case it'll make sod-all difference?

At this point it's health theatre, and we can all point and laugh at that and say "it's so stupid, I wouldn't fall for that" but the flip side of it is the stark reality that: it works. It's how you make people feel comfortable getting back to normal. The same pubs that, when cases were up but there were no restrictions in December, were complaining that their numbers were down? I'm convinced with Omicron the pandemic is essentially over, but convincing people of that, after so many false starts, will be challenging. Especially as the whole "freedom day" thing is something you only get to do once. Confidence this time is going to return more slowly.

I don't disagree but people on the whole weren't going back into the office all the time when the WFH rules were dropped in the first place. Most people were doing 1-3 days a week. Because people were in different times that led to less socialising anyway. I'm not saying the WFH guidance doesn't damage the economy a bit, obviously it does for all the reasons you point out. I'm just saying those reasons make up a very, very small bit of the economy, or even the hospitality sector. It's city centre pubs and Prets basically. "We need to drop the WFH guidance to help city centre pubs and Prets" is a fair enough approach. But it's not going to be the massive shot in the arm for the economy the government seems to think it will be. Especially in dry/vegan/no fun/ January or whatever.

I think that's a total mis-read. It's general worry and hesitation and uncertainty that's keeping the economy down (also it being January) - the WFH thing won't be helping but I think it's fairly minor all things considered.

Isn't that exactly what Twitter is? You follow the people you like. Or follow women you hate so you can call them names? To be honest I follow the whole COVID thing by reading the BBC News website and this thread. It's laughable that you'd say I'm in an echo chamber given I normally argue with you or someone else in here most days. So did you fail when you had your wobble just before Christmas and started saying you thought we probably would need more restrictions?

I think the mask restrictions were pointless without social distancing as I've said before. I think the work at home guidance was sensible. I would have given stronger guidance around Christmas - I think after last year people were going to do it anyway, but I'd have encouraged people to be aware of how it could spread - maybe just go see one set of family, not multiples. I'd have considered stronger measures over new year too - lots of businesses were left in limbo anyway, and there was a lot of hesitance, I'd have just shut hospitality over new year and first two weeks of January and given them the support they needed to survive. More generally it's quite difficult isn't it? My feeling right now is that it's fine, so retrospectively the choice we made was for the best (staffing issues because of isolation aside, as that's a policy issue). But it was a gamble. Given how massively transmissible Omicron seems to be, if it turned out it wasn't massively less deadly, or easily defeated by boosters or whatever, we'd be extremely fucked right now. Last January would have looked like a walk in the park. And we didn't know this in December. We had indications it might be - in fact I'd have given you good odds it would have been. Said as much at the time: we were more likely to be fine than not. The problem is if we weren't fine, it would have been really bad. It's not a gamble I would have taken. I means it's obvious now Johnson made the best choice, but that doesn't mean it was the right choice at the time with the information he had. If I tell you there are two boxes A & B, one with £50,000 in it, and one with nothing. And I tell you there's a 75% chance that box A has the £50k. And you can pick one. The correct choice is box A. If you pick box B, and get lucky, it doesn't retrospectively mean you made the correct decision. And to be fair on the government they've been dogged by this results-oriented approach all along. At many points earlier in the pandemic they made choices on the best data available and those choices turned out to be a disaster and they got criticised for it, and I've never been convinced that was fair either. Still, looking okay now, I genuinely think with Omicron being milder and spreading around, that with the vaccine will finally end this thing for good.

I learned not to listen to Twitter some years ago! It's an utter cesspit, makes this thread look positively civilized! No, Gove actually seems to be looking at the data and being for or against restrictions based on how bad it is. That he's the only member of the cabinet actually doing that (and he's Michael fucking Gove) is a scary idea.

I agree. I think they'll keep testing as an option, but you'll have to pay for the test. It's the Tories so wouldn't be surprised if they say you can only used tests you've paid for also, not any you still have knocking around. I've seen two hysterical reactions so far to it in this this thread, and it was you and someone else planning on panic ordering a bunch!

The problem is how far you go with the secondary impacts - yeah, mental health and kids education will also have suffered...but by the same argument the mass fast-forwarding of scientific work on MRNA vaccines means that long term we'll probably have saved more lives than we actually lose to COVID as the cure for cancer and other diseases is bought forward about five years.

Could still get it now? Doesn't seem to be a time limit on it?

You don't think vaccines drastically reduce chances of death?

There were as many excess deaths in private homes as in care homes.

It spreads everywhere. Other than outdoor/indoor it's no worse one place than anywhere else. But the perception is that places that were closed were places where it was more dangerous. Not true. Places that were closed were those the government thought could be closed by causing the least "damage". But then you get people taking the opposite approach "it doesn't spread in gyms" or "no evidence of it spreading in schools". Of course it does. Gyms are not special. It doesn't spread more there than anywhere else. But that doesn't mean it doesn't spread. It spreads everywhere. Decent chance I picked it up from the chemist when I got my booster!

I feel more sorry for kids who lost parents to Covid to be honest. It's important not to judge, masking might make some kids feel more comfortable, especially if they've been on the pointy end in terms of loss. I guess it stops when numbers go down and hospital capacity isn't an issue?

Wait, are the bedwetters and bedshitters on opposite sides then?

In terms of behavioural change, there have been plenty of posts even on here from people in hospitality saying numbers are down so it's definitely happening.

What is this plan B? Like genuinely? There's no restrictions in England right now? Did I miss something?

I don't think it's a conscious bias at all. But they're 100% right that most of the time when someone links a Twitter thread or article suggesting there be more restrictions, just so they can post "this person is stupid" * then the person they are quoting is a woman. Maybe it's because women are more prominent in the pro-lockdown movement? But it's definitely happening for some reason or other. (*and never actually engaging with what they say either. It used to be "here's a Pagel tweet and this is why she's wrong" now it's "here's a Pagel tweet and she's a c**t" - at which point I wonder why they're being shared in the first place)

Using this sort of mindset was proposed in the US in place of any actual legal measures by one scientist early on in the pandemic. The idea was that by sequencing every case, because of small mutations, you could see exactly who infected who. Then you just make that data public. Make the idea that you might kill someone very real and specific, rather than abstract, and people will behave very differently. Obviously we didn't have the resources to do that much sequencing but it was an interesting idea.

Alternatively: the vaccines work.

Surely the bedwetters are the ones that can't wear (face) nappies?