When will covid end ? Please be nice and respectful to others

[lost]

Should also add something I didn't notice about the doctors/nurses being sacked for not getting vaccine. According to the article I just read it is just policy in England so they can simply go get jobs in Wales/Scotland. Seems strange when the devolved nations have been stricter on everything else.

[zahidf]

Lol makes sense now

[zahidf]

Fake SAGE adjacent lockdown lover Devi sees the light

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/19/science-covid-ineradicable-disease-prevention

[stuartbert two hats]

7 hours ago, DeanoL said:

I don't think I've been opposed to any of the lockdowns. I've had mixed feelings on some other restrictions but broadly I think most of the lockdowns should have been sooner, harsher and in most cases longer.

I certainly don't buy the narrative that some of you lot are pushing that the lockdowns had no impact and were never necessary in the first place. I've sort of bit my tongue on that as I think that attitude is borderline certifiable, so outlandish that I don't even know how to start unpicking it. I've ignored it in the same way I've ignored posts about conspiracy theories around the vaccine - it's a position based so utterly beyond reason or logic that there's no point engaging with it.

But yeah, I go back and forth on what sort of restrictions are warranted based on what the figures are. I seem to be the only one left in thread doing that, the rest of you have got your Tory out and chased everyone else off, and seem to be of the opinion that it's no restrictions ever again under no circumstances. And while that's almost a sane position now, it's been that way here for the past six months. I guess you knew the pandemic would end eventually, so if you kept at it you'd be right eventually? 😄

This thread has basically become an echo chamber with me being the only broadly dissenting voice. Which, y'know, I don't mind, it's interesting to watch and see. But it does amuse me that sometimes I get told I'm not living in the real world or in my own echo chamber. I literally read and engage with this thread every day - you lot *are* my exposure to the lockdown hawks. 

Now maybe outside of this thread I do basically live in a bubble that's not reflective of the rest of the country. Perhaps. I know when I talk with friends about some of the stuff posted on here that's presented as "that's what everyone thinks" they find it hilarious that people are that out of touch. I'm intrigued if any of you actually read Christina Pagel's threads any more to see what the other "side" are saying or if you just post them here and call her an idiot or whatever. Maybe I'm in a bubble, maybe you're in a bubble, maybe we're both in bubbles and this is the only place they meet. 

All I'd say is that just because someone openly acknowledges they could be wrong, or even have been wrong, doesn't make them less likely to be right. 

Yep, I can't be arsed posting most of the time and don't read it every day. You're the only regular poster on here whose views generally align with my own. I've blocked a few and scroll past a few others. I'm here to find news, not read rants.

[LJS]

7 hours ago, DeanoL said:

I don't think I've been opposed to any of the lockdowns. I've had mixed feelings on some other restrictions but broadly I think most of the lockdowns should have been sooner, harsher and in most cases longer.

I certainly don't buy the narrative that some of you lot are pushing that the lockdowns had no impact and were never necessary in the first place. I've sort of bit my tongue on that as I think that attitude is borderline certifiable, so outlandish that I don't even know how to start unpicking it. I've ignored it in the same way I've ignored posts about conspiracy theories around the vaccine - it's a position based so utterly beyond reason or logic that there's no point engaging with it.

But yeah, I go back and forth on what sort of restrictions are warranted based on what the figures are. I seem to be the only one left in thread doing that, the rest of you have got your Tory out and chased everyone else off, and seem to be of the opinion that it's no restrictions ever again under no circumstances. And while that's almost a sane position now, it's been that way here for the past six months. I guess you knew the pandemic would end eventually, so if you kept at it you'd be right eventually?

This thread has basically become an echo chamber with me being the only broadly dissenting voice. Which, y'know, I don't mind, it's interesting to watch and see. But it does amuse me that sometimes I get told I'm not living in the real world or in my own echo chamber. I literally read and engage with this thread every day - you lot *are* my exposure to the lockdown hawks. 

Now maybe outside of this thread I do basically live in a bubble that's not reflective of the rest of the country. Perhaps. I know when I talk with friends about some of the stuff posted on here that's presented as "that's what everyone thinks" they find it hilarious that people are that out of touch. I'm intrigued if any of you actually read Christina Pagel's threads any more to see what the other "side" are saying or if you just post them here and call her an idiot or whatever. Maybe I'm in a bubble, maybe you're in a bubble, maybe we're both in bubbles and this is the only place they meet. 

All I'd say is that just because someone openly acknowledges they could be wrong, or even have been wrong, doesn't make them less likely to be right. 

Just hopped on to say that you are a relative voice of sanity on here. 

This whole thing has become like Brexit where you pick your side and latch on to anyone who supports your "team"

As I've said before, its the people who are certain they are right that worry me most. There seem to be a few of them on here.

I generally can't be arsed engaging with the likes of Barry Fish  & his Codswallop hence why you appear to be a lone voice.

Whilst the current top variant is now clearly less virulent, and the easing of restrictions seems the right thing to do, I can't help thinking that the narrative our leaders are pushing has far more to do with saving our great tousle-haired leader's skin than what is best for our country.

 

[LJS]

1 hour ago, Barry Fish said:

As much as Boris needs a exit plan it seems some of the scientists need one as well

You got an exit plan Barry?

You never called it wrong?

[LJS]

1 minute ago, Barry Fish said:

Don't think I have...

Pre-Vaccine I was all for masks (to an extent), restrictions and distancing
Post-Vaccine I have been anti mask, restrictions and distancing

About right I would say..

Its your modesty I love Barry.

I know someone else who said he got all the calls right apart from implicitly not recognising a party when he sees one.

1 minute ago, Barry Fish said:

How about you and bleating on about Scottish independence to an audience of one ?

Not quite sure what the relevance of this to this thread is.

[zahidf]

Sorry guys. Covid will be going after the most important part of your body 

[efcfanwirral]

The biggest test of all this is if the next variant of concern remains as mild as this one. On the evidence of the past couple of years we're due at least two major ones in 2022. If we get through the next 12 months without re-imposing any rules (or voluntary lockdowns like we saw before Christmas) AND without the "bodies piling high" then maybe we can look forwards. 

As it is, I'm not going to be booking anything more than a couple of weeks in advance.

I also think the end of self isolation in March IS Boris trying to save himself and won't actually happen. I think plan B removal may have happened anyway with the numbers as they are, though I think that would've been through to March too if things had looked different politically

Edited January 20, 2022 by efcfanwirral

[onthebeach]

11 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Yep, I can't be arsed posting most of the time and don't read it every day. You're the only regular poster on here whose views generally align with my own. I've blocked a few and scroll past a few others. I'm here to find news, not read rants.

Sorry to say I gave up posting on this thread some time ago. It originally started (and the previous incarnation) as a go to for news/information with a healthy, respectful debate for the majority of time.

I only keep checking now in the hope of a post from @Toilet Duckwho I really miss for their expert and balanced point of view. Would love to know what their thoughts are on how it’s progressed so far and views on the future.

[Justiceforcedave]

11 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Yep, I can't be arsed posting most of the time and don't read it every day. You're the only regular poster on here whose views generally align with my own. I've blocked a few and scroll past a few others. I'm here to find news, not read rants.

You can block people?! This is a revelation!

[onthebeach]

5 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

lol - the old thread was none of this 🙂

The original one was when it started

Edited January 20, 2022 by onthebeach

[onthebeach]

9 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

People posting to say why they don't post lol.  Just move on 🙂 

ok - will do

[DeanoL]

16 hours ago, lost said:

Dude I've never mentioned Pagel but I'll chip in with a polite comment. Yesterday you called people who had been to medical school idiots, today people who think lockdowns are ineffective are certifiable. If you didn't approach the thread with a debating technique of just saying anyone who disagrees with me on anything is stupid you might get a bit less stick.

I think I generally do approach the debate in an open way and listen to what people have to say. But yeah I think people who believe that "lockdowns had no benefit" or "the vaccine isn't worth having" are stupid. That's kind of my red line. It's gone increasingly weird in here as it's become more of an echo chamber but I've mostly engaged, but those beliefs are on part with "the vaccine is full of nanobots Bill Gates uses to control you". There's swathes and swathes of test data on the benefits of the vaccine, and the risks (virtually nil). Unless you had COVID less than 3 months ago there's no sensible reason to not get it, regardless of if you had a medical degree.

And on lockdowns, trying to use the fact that "well we didn't lockdown now and it's been fine" when we're facing a milder variant against an almost fully vaccinated population, to suggest that locking down in March 2020 was a mistake... when y'know, there's the evidence of the countries that locked-down later having more deaths out there... or the fact that every time we did a lockdown, the deaths went down loads. A coincidence, apparently, the full three times it happened.

I'm fine arguing with Barry over whether the post-vaccine restrictions are sensible or not, I was fine discussing at the time what lockdown measures would work best, where the attention should be, the best way to open up safely, that was all interesting. I have quite strong views on a lot of those things, but I can follow the logic of those that don't share them and it's often informative discussion. 

15 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

My view pre vaccine was very different post vaccine.  I think that is lost on Dean a little because all people remember is recent history 

Once we got the vaccine it became clear pagel was more potlical than science.

You've always been interesting to discuss with because you do and have often changed your mind, you're much less stuck on one side or the other than most of the posters here. But when you do change your mind you are so convinced you're right this time around, and for some technical reason you were never wrong before. And you're quite forceful in putting that across. I can see why people get wound up with you. I get wound up with you. But looking past that there's almost always some sort of valid point in the snark. 

[DeanoL]

14 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

lol - the old thread was none of this 🙂

Nah it pretty much was until the times around the various reopenings. But there was a huge portion where pretty much everyone posted was on the same "side" - that restrictions were needed, and it was just discussing the best way, how the government were cocking up, how Indie SAGE were right - things only diverged when the whole "back to normal" thing started.

[lost]

17 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

 but I've mostly engaged, but those beliefs are on part with "the vaccine is full of nanobots Bill Gates uses to control you".

Really? as far as I'm aware there is no data on nanoboats in the vaccine. There is however lots of data on restrictions as different countries have done different things.

Take last year when as far I'm aware we had the strictest lockdown in the developed world in this country with regards to household mixing from winter into spring. As far as I can see its made no difference to excess death. We did average not the best with regards to excess mortality. Here we can see Sweden did the best and the eastern European countries did the worse probably due to a suspicion of state vaccine mandates after living under socialism.

 

Quote

There's swathes and swathes of test data on the benefits of the vaccine

Of course but there is also data on natural immunity and the types of anti-bodies your body produces upon seeing the whole of the virus vs just the spike protein. The risk of myocarditis maybe low but I guess these people are weighing that up against them thinking the vaccine has no benefit if their natural anti-bodies are still quite high. They maybe wrong but I wouldn't call them stupid. They are simply making a risk vs reward judgment.

Edited January 20, 2022 by lost

[BobWillis2]

I’m not quite why it’s so out there to believe that the Alpha wave could have gone exactly the same as the Omicron wave and didn’t need such a strict lockdown that lasted for far longer than it needed to. 
 

Obviously Deano is right, he’s been on the ball throughout the entire pandemic 😆😆

[efcfanwirral]

2 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

You have said this sort of thing before and been proven right but I think the major difference now is - we have seen out this wave largely thanks to the original two doses of the vaccine.  The booster has - as far as I can tell - been something of a none event.

We now know that boosting only gives a very short term boost (3 months) to the anti bodies.  But we have all retained T-Cell protection etc again serious illness.  

So when the next variant comes along we should have more confidence to ignore if case numbers going up with the hope that hospitals can cope.  

That is my hope anyway.

My hope too of course - just I think its a cautious optimism for now. This winter has proved it can be dealt with without any measures in place apart from maybe work from home as that does keep people away from close contact with others for definite (as I know we all have different opinions on how well plan B stops spread - I'm almost 100% certain the passports did nothing at the very least). But there have been a lot of variants so far. 

Treating it like flu will be hard for a lot of people, as that means letting a lot of older people die "preventable" deaths just like every winter before - so while its not new, we are now more acutely aware of it. So definitely setting up a debate about how that can be dealt with, but I'm not sure how realistic it is to make the results of that debate shutting down the country every year for a bit. 

The biggest change in thinking that needs to happen is to stop supporting the government in allowing them to blame the state of the health service on people being irresponsible enough to catch covid. They need to fix it, and increase capacity over time as they were in a mess every winter before now and no amount of masks or vaccines will fix that. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by efcfanwirral

[efcfanwirral]

36 minutes ago, BobWillis2 said:

I’m not quite why it’s so out there to believe that the Alpha wave could have gone exactly the same as the Omicron wave and didn’t need such a strict lockdown that lasted for far longer than it needed to. 
 

Obviously Deano is right, he’s been on the ball throughout the entire pandemic 😆😆

 

24 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

His latest one is we are all going to become Japanese and wear masks forever...  Lets review this in August 🙂 

Come on "play the ball not the man" to use a football analogy - the debates are good without that stuff 

[Toilet Duck]

31 minutes ago, onthebeach said:

Sorry to say I gave up posting on this thread some time ago. It originally started (and the previous incarnation) as a go to for news/information with a healthy, respectful debate for the majority of time.

I only keep checking now in the hope of a post from @Toilet Duckwho I really miss for their expert and balanced point of view. Would love to know what their thoughts are on how it’s progressed so far and views on the future.

Howdy! I am actually still around, though a bit swamped, so less time for hanging out. Hopefully that will improve! I did post a while back when someone asked my opinion on the emergence of omicron (at the time it hadn't been named!). I think that may have been lost though when the forums went awol! 

Long and short, I'm not overly worried, the tools we already have remain the ones we need to deal with this and future variants (high vaccine coverage and the new therapeutics...Paxlovid in particular (which wasn't approved yet when I last posted either!)). To me it looks like most likely future is variant-specific vaccines for high risk individuals (annually probably), good testing infrastructure to accurately diagnose high risk individuals that present to their GP/A&E with respiratory symptoms (to determine if it is indeed SARS-CoV-2 infection) followed by treatment with Paxlovid (or other emerging treatment options). The combination of vaccination and treatment should further reduce the number that end up progressing to severe disease and require hospitalisation (with the knock-on impact on ICU numbers and mortality). That would appear to be the most likely scenario (though this pandemic has been full of surprises! and Paxlovid isn't that nice a combo, so exploring how it works in patients that are heavily medicated for other things still needs to be ironed out). For the rest of us, existing vaccination levels should be enough to stop the vast majority from developing severe disease that will require hospitalisation (underlying cellular immunity is robust). The current wave really has been a massive test of how well the vaccines work and by and large, they do what we hoped they would (keep people out of hospital and ICU). It's likely that we'll all catch it at some point, possibly repeatedly, but our existing immunity will limit the infection (and we've had a pretty extensive test of this over the last month). The addition of naturally acquired immunity on top of vaccine acquired immunity should be a good thing and will broaden out the ability of our immune systems to deal with variants that haven't even emerged yet (our immune cells actually evolve too and generate cells that predict future variants....rather amazing!).

So, in some parts of the world, the virus is more or less endemic , will remain a periodic threat and will still cause severe infections, hospitalisation and unfortunately death in vulnerable individuals (though there are a range of infectious diseases that now pose a similar risk). Hopefully vaccination and the aforementioned treatments mitigate that sufficiently. Other parts of the world remain in the pandemic phase and still need to either vaccinate their populations or many will acquire immunity via infection (with a higher cost in terms of morbidity and mortality in immune naive populations). I wouldn't rule out guidance to wear masks in high density indoor environments from time to time in the future, though I think we are pretty much past the time when that needs to be mandated (I don't make policy though and there is complex balancing required to manage outbreaks, so can't predict how those that do make these decisions will go). How successful that guidance might be is debatable though! (I flew from LHR to Doha in October when masks were not mandatory in the UK and nobody on board wore masks, even though the airline required it (when I got off, my colleagues informed me that I was the only one to leave my mask on for the entire flight!)...flew from Dublin to Doha a few weeks after and everyone wore masks as they were still required in Ireland at the time, so compliance seems good when mandatory and poor when only guidance). Personally, I avail of home testing for a few days before I meet anyone that might be considered higher risk (I also have the luxury of peace of mind PCR testing in work, which I avail of too (especially when I return from overseas travel), but we will be shutting down our testing facility in the near future), and I still modify my behaviour if I know I'm going to see someone who may not have the same ability as me to fight off an infection (even if they are fully vaccinated and boosted). Though we behave normally when we do meet, I just take precautions in the run up to meeting them. I can see myself doing that in the future if there are large outbreaks (and normal surveillance of this as a notifiable disease should alert us to outbreaks). I also can see vaccine passes and tests remaining for international travel for some time yet (we are still taking our feckin' boots off at security, so changes may be glacial at airports!), though I have travelled a lot since last October and it's not that arduous for travel to some places (currently lost in a rabbit hole of apps and approvals to get into Kuwait next week!...going to the UK, US or Europe is a doddle though). I think their use outside of travel is limited though at this stage and probably no longer required. So, we have made massive progress and I'm optimistic about the future (though I'm naturally optimistic anyway, so not sure how reassuring that is!). 

[DeanoL]

48 minutes ago, lost said:

Really? as far as I'm aware there is no data on nanoboats in the vaccine. There is however lots of data on restrictions as different countries have done different things.

Take last year when as far I'm aware we had the strictest lockdown in the developed world in this country with regards to household mixing from winter into spring. As far as I can see its made no difference to excess death. We did average not the best with regards to excess mortality. Here we can see Sweden did the best and the eastern European countries did the worse probably due to a suspicion of state vaccine mandates after living under socialism.

Like I say, happy to discuss the benefit of Lockdowns in a post-vaccine world, I think that's complicated, and as the vaccine rollout continued the cost/benefit of lockdown is arguable. I argued on one side of it and I still believe that, but I see the other point of view.

I don't see the point of view that lockdown in March 2020 was ineffective.

34 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

It seems to be lost on him how the virus is transmitted did not change when the new variant came along.  

Because the vaccine effects transmission. It reduces it. There's both data pointing at that *and* common sense: the vaccine clearly reduces symptoms, the more symptomatic you are, the more infectious you are. It's not *as* effective against the new variant, sure, but it still works. 

Quote

Its pretty much accepted now that Wave 1 had peaked before lockdown 1 happened

*citation needed 😄

[DeanoL]

41 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

His latest one is we are all going to become Japanese and wear masks forever...  Lets review this in August 🙂 

Can we review in November, actual COVID/flu season y'know... 

[onthebeach]

15 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

Howdy! I am actually still around, though a bit swamped, so less time for hanging out. Hopefully that will improve! I did post a while back when someone asked my opinion on the emergence of omicron (at the time it hadn't been named!). I think that may have been lost though when the forums went awol! 

Long and short, I'm not overly worried, the tools we already have remain the ones we need to deal with this and future variants (high vaccine coverage and the new therapeutics...Paxlovid in particular (which wasn't approved yet when I last posted either!)). To me it looks like most likely future is variant-specific vaccines for high risk individuals (annually probably), good testing infrastructure to accurately diagnose high risk individuals that present to their GP/A&E with respiratory symptoms (to determine if it is indeed SARS-CoV-2 infection) followed by treatment with Paxlovid (or other emerging treatment options). The combination of vaccination and treatment should further reduce the number that end up progressing to severe disease and require hospitalisation (with the knock-on impact on ICU numbers and mortality). That would appear to be the most likely scenario (though this pandemic has been full of surprises! and Paxlovid isn't that nice a combo, so exploring how it works in patients that are heavily medicated for other things still needs to be ironed out). For the rest of us, existing vaccination levels should be enough to stop the vast majority from developing severe disease that will require hospitalisation (underlying cellular immunity is robust). The current wave really has been a massive test of how well the vaccines work and by and large, they do what we hoped they would (keep people out of hospital and ICU). It's likely that we'll all catch it at some point, possibly repeatedly, but our existing immunity will limit the infection (and we've had a pretty extensive test of this over the last month). The addition of naturally acquired immunity on top of vaccine acquired immunity should be a good thing and will broaden out the ability of our immune systems to deal with variants that haven't even emerged yet (our immune cells actually evolve too and generate cells that predict future variants....rather amazing!).

So, in some parts of the world, the virus is more or less endemic , will remain a periodic threat and will still cause severe infections, hospitalisation and unfortunately death in vulnerable individuals (though there are a range of infectious diseases that now pose a similar risk). Hopefully vaccination and the aforementioned treatments mitigate that sufficiently. Other parts of the world remain in the pandemic phase and still need to either vaccinate their populations or many will acquire immunity via infection (with a higher cost in terms of morbidity and mortality in immune naive populations). I wouldn't rule out guidance to wear masks in high density indoor environments from time to time in the future, though I think we are pretty much past the time when that needs to be mandated (I don't make policy though and there is complex balancing required to manage outbreaks, so can't predict how those that do make these decisions will go). How successful that guidance might be is debatable though! (I flew from LHR to Doha in October when masks were not mandatory in the UK and nobody on board wore masks, even though the airline required it (when I got off, my colleagues informed me that I was the only one to leave my mask on for the entire flight!)...flew from Dublin to Doha a few weeks after and everyone wore masks as they were still required in Ireland at the time, so compliance seems good when mandatory and poor when only guidance). Personally, I avail of home testing for a few days before I meet anyone that might be considered higher risk (I also have the luxury of peace of mind PCR testing in work, which I avail of too (especially when I return from overseas travel), but we will be shutting down our testing facility in the near future), and I still modify my behaviour if I know I'm going to see someone who may not have the same ability as me to fight off an infection (even if they are fully vaccinated and boosted). Though we behave normally when we do meet, I just take precautions in the run up to meeting them. I can see myself doing that in the future if there are large outbreaks (and normal surveillance of this as a notifiable disease should alert us to outbreaks). I also can see vaccine passes and tests remaining for international travel for some time yet (we are still taking our feckin' boots off at security, so changes may be glacial at airports!), though I have travelled a lot since last October and it's not that arduous for travel to some places (currently lost in a rabbit hole of apps and approvals to get into Kuwait next week!...going to the UK, US or Europe is a doddle though). I think their use outside of travel is limited though at this stage and probably no longer required. So, we have made massive progress and I'm optimistic about the future (though I'm naturally optimistic anyway, so not sure how reassuring that is!). 

Thank you - really do appreciate that you took time out of your busy schedule to post this. So good to read such a balanced and positive view

[Toilet Duck]

5 minutes ago, onthebeach said:

Thank you - really do appreciate that you took time out of your busy schedule to post this. So good to read such a balanced and positive view

No worries, my pleasure! 

[DeanoL]

47 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Sure let's...  

I mean you don't have to wait really...  hardly anyone was still wearing masks before plan b came back.  

I think you're over-estimating how many people and in what conditions people in Japan wear masks in normal times to be honest. 

I'm not saying everyone will be masked up all the time, just we've been sold masks have health benefits and stop transmission of disease for well over a year now, that's not going entirely back in box. It won't be everyone, it won't be all the time, but you will see masked people around both next month and next winter for sure.