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Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
(Post 33328343)
In this case there is. If you project the Delta variant's spread on one side of the column and the composition of who will get the vaccine over the next few weeks (adding several weeks on top) then you can see that Delta has a shortening window of opportunity to double cases every 7 days rather than every 11 to 12 days, the current progress. Though a lot has been made of the fact that 2 vaccines seem very effective against the variant, less fuss has been made over the fact that dose 1 plus X weeks also gives something like 60% effectiveness, the trouble is we aren't too sure what X is, other than it's over 6 weeks. So if you do the maths, then mid July - on current infection trends - will be OK, hospitals will get a bit busy, but not so much ICU and a minimal level of deaths. But if the 12 days ends up as 6 days then we are in trouble. The liberalisations delayed are ones that affect the unvaccinated and under-vaccinated the most - nightclubs, mass football events, inter-household holidays, up close drinking and eating. So if they are allowed that gives enough of an uptick to make it serious. If you stay at current levels, then with a bit more effort on getting vaccine take up in London and Manchester improved then we should be OK, and most people can maintain their lives with lower restrictions. So yes it's a middle way, but it's factored into the likely road ahead of us.
The critical difference with flu is that the nature of the virus is very different to that of SARS-Cov2 and therefore it is very difficult to reduce the death rate. Or so we thought until this year - we have learned a heck of a lot about what we can do to stop unnecessary influenza deaths and I expect as well as hope that we will be able to make a serious dent on future death rates. Unlike COVID19, children die from flu and this causes huge tragedies for young couples. It's rarely reported on in the media since we have seemingly written it off. But for example with things like lateral flow tests for nursery school staff, better ventilation, more use of cleaning products, a fast withdrawal of sick children from early year settings - all of that will make a big dent in that death rate. And with minimal inconvenience all round really. Small things that really add up. This is a counsel of hope, I can assure you, I doubt you really wanted Boris to say "all systems go and now". Fundamentally I continue to believe the only way out of this is the vaccine in terms of the hard work procuring, manufacturing, and administering it (which you have been involved in) - without it we are almost condemned to endless and depressing cycles of lifting restrictions->increasing infections->increasing hospitalisations & deaths->and back to lockdown. Without the vaccination levels we currently have I suspect we would have been soon heading to another stay at home lockdown. |
Originally Posted by Scots_Al
(Post 33328378)
I think there’s some considerable distance between asking people to wear a mask indoors and a military coup.
It's about (among others): banning us from hugging our family, closing us in our homes, preventing free movement (domestic and international), tracking and tracing us, sharing our medical history, requiring proof of medical status to enter certain premises, closing down businesses, delaying health check ups and hospital treatments, controlling who and how many people do we invite into our own houses, censoring free speech and information flow, encouraging us to snitch on our neighbours... etc, etc We can discuss endlessly about which of these measures were necessary, but the fact is that there will never be a perfect moment to unlock fully. If they want, they will always find a risk - there's always that one life that could've been saved. During last lockdown I had my sister visiting me, as she was legally allowed to do so (she lives alone and we are her support bubble). I had police visit almost immediately - one of our neighbours reported us. If you don't see anything wrong with it, I'm seriously going to loose hope... |
Originally Posted by USA_flyer
(Post 33327741)
Absolutely. I live in an area that has a lot of airport workers so I totally get the fear. But, it is better to ease slowly than have to go backwards and have tougher lockdown restrictions again. Also. Boris did say it was the earliest the rules would be relaxed, I don't ever remember it being promised.
People who are gainfully employed now can easily sit there and say "what's a few more weeks" or "what's a few months" - but every day of inactivity in some sectors is another day where jobs get lost. |
"According to the BBC, the move (4 weeks lockdown extension) will mean 5,000 concerts having to be cancelled, nine in every 10 nightclubs facing permanent closure and a £3billion loss to pubs, cafes, hotels and restaurants."
Some interesting numbers to realise the impact on livelihood of many people working in entertainment and hospitality. |
Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
(Post 33328019)
If a Boeing 777 fell out of the UK sky each and every 6 hours you can bet that you would expect 777s to be grounded immediately. The disease can be, and is being, conquered. Those currently dying from Covid are often in their 30s and 40s, and would have been saved by vaccines. But despite all our best efforts we don't quite have enough vaccines right now - we are on a fairly delicate timeline here. My perception is that if HMG is operating largely on the basis of consent here, certainly parliamentary consent, and that if HMG were to have announced all restrictions ended today, some of us would have been appalled by the unnecessary risk it would avoidably engender.
Dead people have no freedom. It was and continues to be an appalling display of negligence that this government has not banned flights from India. Boris was even intent on a trip to Delhi himself! It’s quite clear that it’s not right to remove all restrictions at this time, but the reckless incompetence and negligence that this government has shown has veered the country off the roadmap. They’ve brought this upon themselves and it was completely avoidable. What we now have is complete nonsensical travel restrictions for arrivals from countries which pose a very low covid risk in order to divert attention away from the fact that this government left the floodgates open to the delta variant and still hasn’t pulled up the drawbridge. They’re destroying livelihoods and businesses in the name of politics, not science nor safety. |
Originally Posted by cameramaker
(Post 33328684)
If on Friday, 6 Boeing 777 aircraft landed at Heathrow (2xBOM; 3xDEL; 1xBLR) and many of the passengers were carrying suitcases full of asbestos fibre about to contaminate everyone they pass and then the buildings they stay in for the next 2 weeks in West London and Berkshire, potentially leading to the deaths of hundreds of people, then you would expect the government would put a stop to it immediately and not let it continue despite contamination being spread all over the country.
It was and continues to be an appalling display of negligence that this government has not banned flights from India. Boris was even intent on a trip to Delhi himself! It’s quite clear that it’s not right to remove all restrictions at this time, but the reckless incompetence and negligence that this government has shown has veered the country off the roadmap. They’ve brought this upon themselves and it was completely avoidable. What we now have is complete nonsensical travel restrictions for arrivals from countries which pose a very low covid risk in order to divert attention away from the fact that this government left the floodgates open to the delta variant and still hasn’t pulled up the drawbridge. They’re destroying livelihoods and businesses in the name of politics, not science nor safety. Of course, I would be very surprised if India were moved off red before the end of the year. |
Originally Posted by cauchy
(Post 33328702)
Given that the Delta variant is here, and is currently causing over 90% of cases, counter-intuitively, the case for keeping India on the red list is diminishing by the day. After all, prevalence has dropped off a lot in India, and there's no longer a variant threat from there. On a pure risk assessment basis, it should be amber very soon.
Of course, I would be very surprised if India were moved off red before the end of the year. |
HMG's role is to balance public safety with other factors. The issue which many of us believe is that there is no balancing going on, except by opinion polls. The focus is purely on public safety against one particular disease, ignoring other diseases, mental health, economic well-being - these matters don't even figure in the briefings and the metrics which are being quoted, and faithfully parroted here. Indeed, there's been no attempt even to quantify these matters. And yet, HMG is in thrall to modellers whose past efforts have, on every occasion, proven to be massively wrong on the pessimistic side.
I happen to believe that the current government never particularly wanted to take these powers, so I'm not going to suggest it's pre-meditated evil, but it shows a) no interest in ridding itself of them and b) no interest in following constitutional arrangements in ordering huge restrictions on the general public. Like most people in this country, there are certain of the rules I can live with, and it mildly irritates me when others disobey them, and certain restrictions I can't live with and I have no compunction in discretely ignoring them. I know of nobody who has, throughout, obeyed every rule, but I know many who proclaim to have done so. What is abundantly clear is that the government's reaction to COVID has turned the UK from a country which had great respect for the law, and was generally law-abiding, to a country where individuals now choose which laws to follow. It won't revert - even if our leaders resist the temptation to lock us up this autumn and on every further occasion where they can find an excuse that will sway public opinion. Personally, there's nothing I want to do that is being delayed by this announcement, but I am still horrified that a) the supine press fails to land any punches (for example, demonstrating that HMG has moved the goalposts and outright lied to the public throughout) and b) the supine public likes it. |
Originally Posted by cauchy
(Post 33328702)
Given that the Delta variant is here, and is currently causing over 90% of cases, counter-intuitively, the case for keeping India on the red list is diminishing by the day. After all, prevalence has dropped off a lot in India, and there's no longer a variant threat from there. On a pure risk assessment basis, it should be amber very soon.
Of course, I would be very surprised if India were moved off red before the end of the year. |
Originally Posted by KARFA
(Post 33328483)
I actually don't necessarily disagree with the delay now tbh. I would like to say it is very unlucky we have got ourselves in to this situation with the Delta variant now - but as I mentioned in my previous post it was more about bad judgement than luck.
First, the Home Office and UKBF failed miserably in enforcing the travel ban during lockdown. As data shows, while passenger numbers for destinations such as JFK, HKG, SIN or FRA fell by more than 90% between 2019 and 2020/21, the reduction for India was a lot lower, between 60 and 80%. As for Pakistan, the number of passengers actually increased. Anecdotally, I've been told by many friends who operated flights of passengers coming from the North and going to India or Pakistan "for holidays". Then, and even worse, HMG at large failed to add India to the red list for 2, 3 weeks despite they had ample evidence of the fact that a new variant was emerging, that the cases were rising as fast as a Soyuz bound for the ISS and that, to be charitable, the C-19 tests produced by travellers prior to embarking weren't the most precise ever. Now, we are where we are. In a normal country, or even in the UK of yesteryear, there'd have been some sort of backlash and somebody would've lost his/her job, but clearly this isn't the case. I'm just hoping Whitehall is learning the right lessons about this n-th debacle, but I suppose the one they've learnt is, instead, "do not open anything to any other country". Meanwhile, Draghi at the end of the G7 has hinted at a possible return of quarantine from the UK if cases continue to rise... |
I was watering my peace lily last night so didn't catch the press conference. Has the next green list review been postponed until the end of July too or are we still expecting one in a few weeks?
I mean, not really expecting any movement green list wise until at least the MP summer holidays (wait for the exodus, bet Gove will be off again) but just curious. |
Some paperwork has been worked on overnight and though it is all dressed up in the usual cliché soup, the 4 page document can be surmised (by me) in one sentence: the target now is to get 90% first doses for adults done by mid July and 75% second doses. You will all know what I think about herd immunity, but this is the bone I can throw in terms of what it may look like.
The current adult dose rates are 79.20% and 56.93%. To get 90% doesn't strike me as too difficult, given where we are, but truly amazing in terms of public health protection buy-in by the population. It also allows me to back calculate what would have happened if we had no vaccines at this point, a very plausible outcome had the University of Oxford and BioNTech teams not hit the jackpot. And it's around 1,000 death a day, making some assumptions about the faster transmission of Delta and we were in a strict lockdown again. Personally I think AZ should be opened up again to younger people again, for those that want it. |
Originally Posted by Schwann
(Post 33329622)
I was watering my peace lily last night so didn't catch the press conference. Has the next green list review been postponed until the end of July too or are we still expecting one in a few weeks?
I mean, not really expecting any movement green list wise until at least the MP summer holidays (wait for the exodus, bet Gove will be off again) but just curious. |
Originally Posted by Schwann
(Post 33329622)
I was watering my peace lily last night so didn't catch the press conference. Has the next green list review been postponed until the end of July too or are we still expecting one in a few weeks?
PS: the press conference went on for 45 minutes, are you sure you are not over-watering your lilly? |
Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
(Post 33329640)
There are no changes to the process, however the mood music clearly isn't favouring mass openings on to the Green list until mid / end July. The PM was asked about travel and he in essence said the restrictions are what they are. He did however say two other things, and to paraphrase, we have to at some point live with this virus even though it will continue to be a public health risk; but it follows that once vaccination has reached a high degree of coverage then we will have to find ways to operate our lives more openly, more normal than now. I would interpret the latter clause to include international travel even though it would probably be the final thing on the list. The one thing we know he is keen on is for London to resume life as a metropolis again, he really doesn't like WFH.
PS: the press conference went on for 45 minutes, are you sure you are not over-watering your lilly? |
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