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

[Fuzzy Afro]

9 minutes ago, lost said:

Something does seem a bit off. Russia currently clocking 1000 deaths a day where covid is the primary cause, apparently estimates put that at 1800ish using our measure with a positive test within 28 days and their system is managing fine apparently. Population just over double ours.

Russian healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP 5.3% vs our 12.8% in 2020 before the NI rise. The issue doesn't seem to be money.

It’s the population obesity mixed with the fact that “our NHS” is worshipped like the US military preventing the necessary reforms to run it efficiently. 

[efcfanwirral]

44 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Plan B in early November becomes rule of 6 in mid November, becomes household mixing ban in December, becomes strict bubble guidance at Christmas, becomes the cancellation of New Year’s Eve and ultimately, another brutal lockdown from early January through Easter 2022. 
 

The pandemic is over in the UK and the virus is endemic in society now. What people need to reconcile is that anyone asking for restrictions now is asking for them permanently. 50,000+ deaths a year is the new normal.

 

 

Yeah I agree with all this - but I don't think it's avoidable because the NHS is fucked and its winter virus season. A big number of factors has come together to put us in a situation where there is no answer 

[efcfanwirral]

19 minutes ago, lost said:

Something does seem a bit off. Russia currently clocking 1000 deaths a day where covid is the primary cause, apparently estimates put that at 1800ish using our measure with a positive test within 28 days and their system is managing fine apparently. Population just over double ours.

Russian healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP 5.3% vs our 12.8% in 2020 before the NI rise. The issue doesn't seem to be money.

Would love to know the political views of some of the people in those numbers...if you have a country with such a brutal reputation then who knows, could be a cover for a bit of a clearout 

[lost]

6 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

Would love to know the political views of some of the people in those numbers...if you have a country with such a brutal reputation then who knows, could be a cover for a bit of a clearout 

Yeah Putin maybe being lying so if we take the OECD average of 9.6% we are still well above average before the NI rise.

As Fuzzy Afro says it could be because we are so obese but then if you don't identify what the real issue is we are going to get a decade of this. Is anyone actually expecting the NI rise to fix the issue or will we back where we are now in say 2 to 3 years time?

Edited October 20, 2021 by lost

[steviewevie]

Your master has spoken (tweeted).

 

[Fuzzy Afro]

20 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Thorpe park yesterday and chessington today - no masks.  No one is listening Chris.  

 

Saying that  - it's mostly outdoors 

How you feeling Barry? Over your battle with the old Delta sniffles?

[DeanoL]

21 hours ago, zahidf said:

Well that's different to the current situation though: there isn't a new vaccine resistant variant. So why would be people agree to be restricted again without that?

There's new variants all the time - my point is if the government decide to pick one of them and use it as an excuse for bringing in new restrictions, people will go along with it. People haven't suddenly got smarter about measuring risk or even decided "enough is enough". They're just doing what they've always done: followed the government's lead to a level none of us really expected. When that's "stay at home" people really did. Now it's "back to normal" people are doing that.

2 hours ago, efcfanwirral said:

It seems its the only topic back on the radar everywhere, with the exact same split between restrictions vs not as last year. 

I'll say it again - any restrictions this year = restrictions every winter, and Possibly low level ones all the time (though I don't know what) to keep cases down ahead of winter months if this year gets bad enough.

Properly funding AND running the NHS is obviously the answer to deal with this permanent increase in demand, restricting our lives isnt the answer for a virus that will always be here.

Nah, the science is really good - the current vaccines are just the first batch, made as quickly as possible - we'll get better and better as we go along. 

[zahidf]

4 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

There's new variants all the time - my point is if the government decide to pick one of them and use it as an excuse for bringing in new restrictions, people will go along with it. 

 

I don't see the Govt lying in that way, especially with the international issues in terms of countries closing their border to us. I certainly don't think SAGE would go along with that. 

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, fraybentos1 said:

Yeah I agree, it’s a slippery slope.

The slippery slope is the case numbers which are still going up, not the restrictions. If we did the stuff in that plan, and case numbers (and hospital numbers) started going down there would be no need for other restrictions.

Problem is they won't be enough to make numbers go down. And that's the slippery slope - while numbers are going up, they're always going to continue to go up unless we hit this possibly mythical herd immunity. So these restrictions would make the slope shallower, it'd delay the point at which we hit the higher numbers which would pose a problem, and require more restrictions if we want to deal with them in the same way. But we'd still hit that point. Although if we can delay it until after winter we might be okay.

2 hours ago, fraybentos1 said:

Worth remembering that deaths and cases are much lower still than the doom mongers said they would be at this point. 

They're also much lower than the "enough is enough" crowd said they would be. Which is part of the problem. Everyone was expecting it to have peaked by now. Us doom-mongers were saying it'd spread like wildfire and that'd cause a problem as the NHS would get overloaded. We were wrong.

But then the "open everything up crowd" were saying it's spread like wildfire and it needed to, as that way we could have the peak in summer when the NHS could cope. They said we had to open up in summer because a winter peak would be a total disaster. They were wrong too. And we're still headed for the winter peak they were concerned about.

I don't think any of us thought in June that with things reopening, cases would still be going up in October. We all thought there'd be a surge and a peak over summer, we just disagreed on how well the vaccine would do in preventing hospitalisations and so whether we'd be able to cope with that surge or not.

So as weird as it is to say, the problem is that that surge hasn't really happened. Just a stead, somewhat concerning climb.

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

I don't see the Govt lying in that way, especially with the international issues in terms of countries closing their border to us. I certainly don't think SAGE would go along with that. 

They did once already? The Christmas restrictions were couched as "ah sorry new variant" rather than "ah sorry we really fucked this up". If there's a need to announce new restrictions, they'll come up with a medical reason for it. It definitely won't be "oh, we got the re-opening wrong".

Not that it really matters - my point was just that people are turning a blind eye right now because they're being told to, just like they locked down because they were told to. It's not the public magically deciding they all now agree with you and Baz 😄 

[efcfanwirral]

7 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I don't think any of us thought in June that with things reopening, cases would still be going up in October. We all thought there'd be a surge and a peak over summer, we just disagreed on how well the vaccine would do in preventing hospitalisations and so whether we'd be able to cope with that surge or not.

I did expect this - I've always maintained winter would have restrictions, perhaps even lockdowns. But I've never had the same faith in the vaccines stopping transmission as others have, so its a lucky guess coming from an unintelligent and bad faith  place! 

Edited October 20, 2021 by efcfanwirral

[efcfanwirral]

What do we reckon for the press conference tonight?  Plan B or just a stern telling off?

[Fuzzy Afro]

Just an encouragement to go out and get your boosters 

[efcfanwirral]

1 minute ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Just an encouragement to go out and get your boosters 

Oh only just seen it's Javid - had assumed the PM. Definitely just a stop gap one then 

[DeanoL]

11 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

I did expect this - I've always maintained winter would have restrictions, perhaps even lockdowns. But I've never had the same faith in the vaccines stopping transmission as others have, so its a lucky guess coming from an unintelligent and bad faith  place! 

True - fair point, you're the one person on here that did call it!

[steviewevie]

13 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

The slippery slope is the case numbers which are still going up, not the restrictions. If we did the stuff in that plan, and case numbers (and hospital numbers) started going down there would be no need for other restrictions.

Problem is they won't be enough to make numbers go down. And that's the slippery slope - while numbers are going up, they're always going to continue to go up unless we hit this possibly mythical herd immunity. So these restrictions would make the slope shallower, it'd delay the point at which we hit the higher numbers which would pose a problem, and require more restrictions if we want to deal with them in the same way. But we'd still hit that point. Although if we can delay it until after winter we might be okay.

They're also much lower than the "enough is enough" crowd said they would be. Which is part of the problem. Everyone was expecting it to have peaked by now. Us doom-mongers were saying it'd spread like wildfire and that'd cause a problem as the NHS would get overloaded. We were wrong.

But then the "open everything up crowd" were saying it's spread like wildfire and it needed to, as that way we could have the peak in summer when the NHS could cope. They said we had to open up in summer because a winter peak would be a total disaster. They were wrong too. And we're still headed for the winter peak they were concerned about.

I don't think any of us thought in June that with things reopening, cases would still be going up in October. We all thought there'd be a surge and a peak over summer, we just disagreed on how well the vaccine would do in preventing hospitalisations and so whether we'd be able to cope with that surge or not.

So as weird as it is to say, the problem is that that surge hasn't really happened. Just a stead, somewhat concerning climb.

We don't necessarily have to have a surge this winter though do we? One of the reasons for opening up over summer was school holidays plus more people outside, and over the time could get more immunity in the population through vaccine (and infection). Now we are in autumn and didn't have any spike in cases over the summer, but we also have a much higher proportion of population vaccinated, and are now (supposedly) rolling out vaccines to teenagers and 3rd vaccines to over 50s, which could actually prevent a surge in cases this autumn/winter. I think the main problem is when opened up cases and deaths were already pretty high, and they've remained pretty high, so pressure in hospitals has remained high and now we're going into winter with other stuff which will put extra pressure on NHS.

Also, is the recent rise in cases something to do with the cock up in that lab in SW?

[lost]

13 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

 But I've never had the same faith in the vaccines stopping transmission as others have, so its a lucky guess coming from an unintelligent and bad faith  place! 

I think some people fundamentally misunderstand how vaccines work. People need to think about it like putting oil in the engine of your car. The oil helps it work properly but if you have a problem with the engine simply putting oil in won't fix it.

[fraybentos1]

21 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

The slippery slope is the case numbers which are still going up, not the restrictions. If we did the stuff in that plan, and case numbers (and hospital numbers) started going down there would be no need for other restrictions.

Problem is they won't be enough to make numbers go down. And that's the slippery slope - while numbers are going up, they're always going to continue to go up unless we hit this possibly mythical herd immunity. So these restrictions would make the slope shallower, it'd delay the point at which we hit the higher numbers which would pose a problem, and require more restrictions if we want to deal with them in the same way. But we'd still hit that point. Although if we can delay it until after winter we might be okay.

They're also much lower than the "enough is enough" crowd said they would be. Which is part of the problem. Everyone was expecting it to have peaked by now. Us doom-mongers were saying it'd spread like wildfire and that'd cause a problem as the NHS would get overloaded. We were wrong.

But then the "open everything up crowd" were saying it's spread like wildfire and it needed to, as that way we could have the peak in summer when the NHS could cope. They said we had to open up in summer because a winter peak would be a total disaster. They were wrong too. And we're still headed for the winter peak they were concerned about.

I don't think any of us thought in June that with things reopening, cases would still be going up in October. We all thought there'd be a surge and a peak over summer, we just disagreed on how well the vaccine would do in preventing hospitalisations and so whether we'd be able to cope with that surge or not.

So as weird as it is to say, the problem is that that surge hasn't really happened. Just a stead, somewhat concerning climb.

A lot of these cases atm are in kids, they can only go so much higher and then they’ll stray to come down shortly. We have just watched Scotland go from 7k cases a day down to 2.5 ish now. 
 

Also hospitals are way better off than anyone said they would be.

 

Also herd immunity isn’t really a myth, look at India and tell me how their case rate is possible. 
 

Things are broadly fine and cases will come down soon enough. Let’s have this disunion again in a fortnight and see where we are then 

[efcfanwirral]

5 minutes ago, lost said:

I think some people fundamentally misunderstand how vaccines work. People need to think about it like putting oil in the engine of your car. The oil helps it work properly but if you have a problem with the engine simply putting oil in won't fix it.

The media are squarely to blame - I remember valance or whitty, can't remember which, explicitly stating in January at one of the press conferences that it would only reduce symptoms and hospitalisation, and some transmission to an extent. That's how I've always thought of it since hearing that. 

Then somehow the narrative turned into something that hinted that eradication could be possible and people are now slowly being left disappointed (I don't mean on here, I mean the headline reading types) 

Edited October 20, 2021 by efcfanwirral

[DeanoL]

3 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

Things are broadly fine and cases will come down soon enough. Let’s have this disunion again in a fortnight and see where we are then 

That's definitely possible and hope so. But I'd imagine if we spoke two weeks ago you'd have thought the same? It certainly feels like we should have hit the peak already, but we've not. And that's the potentially scary bit. 

[steviewevie]

15 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

The media are squarely to blame - I remember valance or whitty, can't remember which, explicitly stating in January at one of the press conferences that it would only reduce symptoms and hospitalisation, and some transmission to an extent. That's how I've always thought of it since hearing that. 

Then somehow the narrative turned into something that hinted that eradication could be possible and people are now slowly being left disappointed (I don't mean on here, I mean the headline reading types) 

I guess thinking is if people had less symptoms then this would reduce spread because less coughing/sneezing etc. Infact this is probably the case, right?

[Ryan1984]

I was going to say the point from the NHS guys’ plan about public communications is one is agree with. Get Boris to do one of his banging on the table addresses to the nation just to say be sensible etc. It’s been a while since he did one?

[zahidf]

53 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

The slippery slope is the case numbers which are still going up, not the restrictions. If we did the stuff in that plan, and case numbers (and hospital numbers) started going down there would be no need for other restrictions.

Problem is they won't be enough to make numbers go down. And that's the slippery slope - while numbers are going up, they're always going to continue to go up unless we hit this possibly mythical herd immunity. So these restrictions would make the slope shallower, it'd delay the point at which we hit the higher numbers which would pose a problem, and require more restrictions if we want to deal with them in the same way. But we'd still hit that point. Although if we can delay it until after winter we might be okay.

They're also much lower than the "enough is enough" crowd said they would be. Which is part of the problem. Everyone was expecting it to have peaked by now. Us doom-mongers were saying it'd spread like wildfire and that'd cause a problem as the NHS would get overloaded. We were wrong.

But then the "open everything up crowd" were saying it's spread like wildfire and it needed to, as that way we could have the peak in summer when the NHS could cope. They said we had to open up in summer because a winter peak would be a total disaster. They were wrong too. And we're still headed for the winter peak they were concerned about.

I don't think any of us thought in June that with things reopening, cases would still be going up in October. We all thought there'd be a surge and a peak over summer, we just disagreed on how well the vaccine would do in preventing hospitalisations and so whether we'd be able to cope with that surge or not.

So as weird as it is to say, the problem is that that surge hasn't really happened. Just a stead, somewhat concerning climb.

Are we going towards a new peak? its going up and down for the last few months. I'm still dubious we will get much higher cases than we have now to any great degree, especially as we have half term soon

[Crazyfool01]

Turns out our lab was self accredited … today we will go over 1000 cases per 100,000 .. let’s hope the numbers start to drop soon …. I’m testing daily after going to a gig on Friday and was testing before that as well as wearing my face mask without fail where they are should be worn … simple things to keep the cases down … all those plan b things we should have had in place to enable an open economy … now people play Russian roulette with the virus if they choose to go out with cases so high … not exactly conducive to an effective open economy … and no @zahdif we shouldn’t have to have these restrictions of things being closed because of the nhs being overwhelmed as a norm  but that is where we are now after a decade of underfunding ? What’s the alternative ? 

[zahidf]

1 minute ago, crazyfool1 said:

Turns out our lab was self accredited … today we will go over 1000 cases per 100,000 .. let’s hope the numbers start to drop soon …. I’m testing daily after going to a gig on Friday and was testing before that as well as wearing my face mask without fail where they are should be worn … simple things to keep the cases down … all those plan b things we should have had in place to enable an open economy … now people play Russian roulette with the virus if they choose to go out with cases so high … not exactly conducive to an effective open economy … and no @zahdif we shouldn’t have to have these restrictions of things being closed because of the nhs being overwhelmed as a norm  but that is where we are now after a decade of underfunding ? What’s the alternative ? 

Fight for better funding for the NHS. and better sick pay so people will take time off if they test positive

 

the NHS needs to be careful. People wont be happy to have restrictions JUST to help with waiting lists

Edited October 20, 2021 by zahidf