When will this shit end?

[Fuzzy Afro]

It’s worth remembering that politics is all about getting the basics right. You CANNOT protect everybody. An exit wave would probably lead to a few thousand deaths among anti-vaxxers, young people with undiagnosed health conditions (hence not priority vaccine list) and the small percentage of extremely vulnerable for which the vaccine didn’t work.

 

 

It’s debatable whether these few thousand lives are worth a longer lockdown but for me, it’s time to open up and shift the responsibility over to individual choice like it should have been all along. 

[Chapple12345]

6 minutes ago, Avalon_Fields said:

Some of the countries which have done the best with strict lockdowns but less good with vaccinations - Vietnam, Australia, and others - have fresh outbreaks, and no realistic end to their state of isolation.

The only lasting solution is vaccinations. Lockdowns just delay the inevitable. We may even lead the world in vaccination %'s as we are catching up on Israel.

Unlock Unlock Unlock

I believe I saw yesterday Wales is even now ahead of Israel in terms of vaccination so I imagine the rest of the UK won't be far behind either - I do find it interesting why their vaccine rates are so low, is it a general consensus that the government have handled it well so they could take a chance on not getting it 

 

8 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Personally, I'd be more comfortable with a short extension to the final unlocking, but I don't see disaster if we don't.

I probably agree, judging by what we've seen elsewhere the situation will worsen for about 3 week and stabilise, hopefully more vaccinations will lead to people needing less time in the hospitals 

[Havors]

12 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Any particular episode for the idea that specifically  lockdown changed the policies in the NHS to prioritise COVID? I don't fancy watching all nine.

whoa whoa whoa... don't put words in my mouth.

[stuartbert two hats]

1 minute ago, Chapple12345 said:

I believe I saw yesterday Wales is even now ahead of Israel in terms of vaccination so I imagine the rest of the UK won't be far behind either - I do find it interesting why their vaccine rates are so low, is it a general consensus that the government have handled it well so they could take a chance on not getting it 

 

I probably agree, judging by what we've seen elsewhere the situation will worsen for about 3 week and stabilise, hopefully more vaccinations will lead to people needing less time in the hospitals 

Unfortunately, we already seem to be heading for the "worsen for about 3 weeks" without moving to the final step - although given the change in relationship between cases-hospitalisations-deaths, it's looking possible we're getting away with it.

Despite being jabbed once and not in a high risk and everyone I know in a higher risk group being double jabbed, it does make me a bit nervous to be living somewhere that was below national average a few weeks ago, but now has weekly growth rates of nearly 300%, seemingly out of nowhere.  Except it's not nowhere - it's two weeks after the last unlocking, so the step 3 is showing up in cases bang on schedule.  

From the point the 5 week gap was announced, we knew it was to allow enough time to infection to propagate through to fatalities, but the vaccine have been so successful in reducing infection, we've never needed the full five weeks for it to be pretty clear things are ok - we just haven't had case outbreaks in this way since the 2021 lockdown began.  It's going to go to the wire to really be sure whether we're good to go.

[stuartbert two hats]

2 minutes ago, Havors said:

whoa whoa whoa... don't put words in my mouth.

Woah woah woah, you responded to me questioning that lockdown was the cause of covid being prioritised in the NHS by suggesting I watched a nine part series on iPlayer.

[Reckoner]

7 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

She regularly did 15 tweet threads about the Bolton situation and how *bad* it was but as soon as it seems alright again it’s a quick tweet going aw things look ok and then right on to the next thing. 
 

She seems to want things to shut back more than they are now which to me is insane. Quite clearly for her one covid death is too many which is just an unrealistic view point.

If she kept tweeting about Bolton  instead of moving onto the next thing she'd be accused of:

1 hour ago, Barry Fish said:

- Pagel wants to come out of this saying I told you so

 I'd agree she is too cautious in general at the moment, and while there may be some merit in delaying the next step (pending the next week of data), there seems to be none in actually going further back. 

It's the constant "playing of the man, not the ball" that is the problem. Posts like the one that i originally replied to not actually supported by any facts. It hardly provides a clear picture and the confirmation bias does nothing to progress the debate. 

 

[zahidf]

Yup!

[zahidf]

Boris and Hancock due to speak this week about current thinking apparently 

[Havors]

1 minute ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Woah woah woah, you responded to me questioning that lockdown was the cause of covid being prioritised in the NHS by suggesting I watched a nine part series on iPlayer.

The conversation was about NHS priorities and the backlog and death that cancelling everything other than looking after covid patients has caused. 

I just suggested you watch a fascinating series which shows some the madness this caused. I still suggest you watch it. You will see the effects. 

[Copperface]

7 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Yup!

Article written by Alex Wickham, formerly of Guido Fawkes, Breitbart and The Spectator. 

No agenda at all of course.

[Havors]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

An easily sorted nightmare if I'm allowed home for a few hours. Would be daft for them to not allow it and my usiness to come to a halt because I hadn't set things up to dcovrery all eventualities but only what was expected to happen. 

Im going to miss your word puzzle posts when you use a keyboard again.. Having to work out what you are saying is a fun game 😄😄 

[sjseabass]

39 minutes ago, Havors said:

The conversation was about NHS priorities and the backlog and death that cancelling everything other than looking after covid patients has caused. 

I just suggested you watch a fascinating series which shows some the madness this caused. I still suggest you watch it. You will see the effects. 

Yeah, but that’s due to Covid being rampant, not due to lockdown.

Lockdown and delays to other care are both symptoms of the virus spreading, the first doesn’t cause the second.

[Fuzzy Afro]

Just now, sjseabass said:

Yeah, but that’s due to Covid being rampant, not due to lockdown.

Lockdown and delays to other care are both symptoms of the virus spreading, the first doesn’t cause the second.

Disagree with this.

 

They could have prioritised other things at the expense of covid care. They just ideologically decided not to. 

[sjseabass]

2 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Disagree with this.

 

They could have prioritised other things at the expense of covid care. They just ideologically decided not to. 

Still nothing to do with being in lockdown or not, which is what both me and stuartbert are getting at.

As for ideology, I think the NHS was (imperfectly) trying to make the biggest difference to the greatest amount of people, which when you have an influx of seriously ill Covid patients unfortunately means you have to spend a lot of time treating them at the expense of other things which are slightly less urgent.

The real answer, of course, is to fund the NHS properly and hire enough people to be able to deal with this sort of eventuality without having to compromise so much elsewhere.

[Havors]

Just now, sjseabass said:

Yeah, but that’s due to Covid being rampant, not due to lockdown.

Lockdown and delays to other care are both symptoms of the virus spreading, the first doesn’t cause the second.

Yeah I know what you are saying. I woudlnt say Lockdown caused the problem, thats a bit illogical...  but can you separate the lockdown policy from the policy decision to stop all surgery and cancer treatments etc? It was all part of the same plan? 

There is a very real conversation about the cost and benefit of what happened with NHS decisions. A conversation a lot of people dont want to hear because there are some horrible decisions that had to be made and that were not made. 

I personally think the fall out of not treating other patients will surpass the death toll of covid. There needs to be some massive initiative from right now to try and claw back whats been lost or its going to be pretty bleak.
 

[steviewevie]

1 hour ago, Avalon_Fields said:

Some of the countries which have done the best with strict lockdowns but less good with vaccinations - Vietnam, Australia, and others - have fresh outbreaks, and no realistic end to their state of isolation.

The only lasting solution is vaccinations. Lockdowns just delay the inevitable. We may even lead the world in vaccination %'s as we are catching up on Israel.

Unlock Unlock Unlock

Unlock once vaccinated.

[eFestivals]

18 minutes ago, Havors said:

Im going to miss your word puzzle posts when you use a keyboard again.. Having to work out what you are saying is a fun game 😄😄 

It won't make more sense with all the words.

[steviewevie]

1 hour ago, Havors said:

The conversation was about NHS priorities and the backlog and death that cancelling everything other than looking after covid patients has caused. 

I just suggested you watch a fascinating series which shows some the madness this caused. I still suggest you watch it. You will see the effects. 

I'm sure there were suggestions that lockdowns meant cancer patients weren't getting treated...

[Havors]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I'm sure there were suggestions that lockdowns meant cancer patients weren't getting treated...

There was, there was a lot of things said, its a conversation 🙂 Depends how you look at it I guess. Whether you take the lockdown in isolation or the lockdown and cancellation of all treatments as one in the same plan. Did they coincide? 

To say that us shutting pubs and shops caused cancer treatment to be cancelled is a bit illogical. But when you look at it as a whole... shutting everything and cancelling treatments where part of the same plan... its debatable. 

[DeanoL]

 

15 hours ago, steviewevie said:

This guy nails it...I mean, don't get me wrong, as an old fart I find young people extremely unpleasant...but I really think society owes them big time. Meanwhile...student loans, massively increasing house prices, lack of secure employment etc etc.

 

Yeah - it's weird as it's a really easy thought experiment too, yet people just won't admit it. But ask anyone, you have to lockdown for a year and not see anyone, would you like it to be when you're 5, 25 or 75?

Nearly all of us would not have chosen our 20s, surely?I guess some of it comes down to that creepy British repression. You can say "grandparents can't hug their grandkids" on TV and have it be a tragedy but you can't say "twenty-somethings unable to fuck strangers they met for the first time that night" without some people getting all puritan about it.

[Fuzzy Afro]

4 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

 

Yeah - it's weird as it's a really easy thought experiment too, yet people just won't admit it. But ask anyone, you have to lockdown for a year and not see anyone, would you like it to be when you're 5, 25 or 75?

Nearly all of us would not have chosen our 20s, surely?I guess some of it comes down to that creepy British repression. You can say "grandparents can't hug their grandkids" on TV and have it be a tragedy but you can't say "twenty-somethings unable to fuck strangers they met for the first time that night" without some people getting all puritan about it.

I like this thought experiment.

 

I’d suggest the correct answer is either when you’re very young, or maybe middle-aged, say 50’s. 

 

[squirrelarmy]

9 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I'm sure there were suggestions that lockdowns meant cancer patients weren't getting treated...

Patients are getting treated according to their urgency. I’ve got a mate whose got a dodgy lump which has the potential to turn cancerous so she is getting surgery imminently to remove it.
 

My own dodgy lump which needs removing isn’t cancerous so that has meant my treatment has being delayed. If it wasn’t for Covid I would have already had my operation but because it’s behaving itself I don’t need the immediate surgery. 

[DeanoL]

 

3 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

If you want - Pagel wants to come out of this saying I told you so while also having been completely wrong throughout.  She is the worse.  You shouldn't support her and her wrong ways.

Throughout? How quickly we forget, wasn't everyone onside with her (except, bizarrely, me 'cause I'm an idiot) when she was saying we should cancel Christmas? Weren't we all on side when she was calling for a second lockdown earlier than it happened?

She's always argued for more caution, and that was actually right for the first ten months of the pandemic. It's only in the last four, as the vaccines have proven to be extremely good, that we're starting to think she's wrong. And even then, given the figures now, she might not be right that we need to stay locked down for a few extra months but she was right when she was arguing that the roadmap shouldn't be bought forward, or it shouldn't be any more aggressive that it was.

2 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

I think everyone understands and accepts the risks she keeps beating the drum over.  No one is blinded to her point of view or even the possible merits of it.  But it's the constant beating of that drum that makes people question her real motives.

Maybe you guys could stop following her on Twitter? And stop sharing her posts in here? Don't worry, those of us that don't hate her and so can read her stuff without having to post how angry it makes us will keep an eye out and share it if she says anything genuinely interesting or different!

21 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Disagree with this.

 

They could have prioritised other things at the expense of covid care. They just ideologically decided not to. 

I don't think lockdown interacts with that one way or the other. I can see the argument that lockdown was to keep cases down so the NHS *could* treat COVID - but the counterpoint is that you could lockdown because the NHS has decided *not* to treat COVID, so you best avoid catching it. Compliance would have been well up then!

(Not that it would actually have helped that much, because all the private hospital capacity that was sold to the NHS wouldn't be available as people would be spending every penny they had on private COVID treatment if they were ill. And who is going to go to a hospital for a routine cancer screening if going to that hospital puts you into contact with people who might give you COVID, for which you won't get treatment.)

[zahidf]

 

[Greenelk]

2 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

Patients are getting treated according to their urgency. I’ve got a mate whose got a dodgy lump which has the potential to turn cancerous so she is getting surgery imminently to remove it.
 

My own dodgy lump which needs removing isn’t cancerous so that has meant my treatment has being delayed. If it wasn’t for Covid I would have already had my operation but because it’s behaving itself I don’t need the immediate surgery. 

Whereas I had a lump removed in November last year, and results showed that it was malignant.  I have another growth near the area of the first one, which was present at the time of the first op, but the surgeon decided to do that at a later date, and I'm still on the waiting list.

So I think area comes into it as well, sadly (i'm in an East London borough)