So, no answer then. Fine.

My bold, where did I imply "conspiracist?

And, I will "attack" anyone that is more than willing to "attack" and name call on other threads and in this one. I look at it as a robust challenge and that is what forums are for. The mods can sort any other stuff out and do.

For example, I think keeping mask requirements indoors in place would not be particularly invasive. Yeah, the benefit of a few additional months of mask mandates may not huge but the cost associated with it isn't, either. Hence, the cost-benefit ratio may very well be acceptable.

The current wave has already led to a whole bunch of school closures. Those come at a very high cost if you ask me. Obviously, none of the options on the table are without any negative consequences. For instance, keeping distancing rules in place for a few months longer is bad for many businesses in the hospitality or retail sectors. But school closures have very long-term costs. And an extra covid death is a high price to pay as well.

So I am aware that there always are trade-offs. The policy chosen depends on people's preferences and it's all but trivial to make a choice which reflects what the public wants.

However, one should try to understand some of the tradeoffs. Most experts I've heard claim that it's easier to stabilize infections numbers at a low level than at a high level. One reason for that the difficulty of contract tracing increases exponentially with the number of the infected. This could be for the umteenth time the BJ administration has to tighten more heavily later because they were too loose initially (roughly speaking).

Lastly, I am also afraid a negative feedback effect that results from the message of freedom day which says people need to deal with covid individually and "freeing" us from social restrictions. It may lead to people underestimating the threat that remains and make them take inefficiently high risks.

This really isn't the winning argument you seem to think it is. I can't give a figure any more than I could tell you anything meaningful about dinosaur fossils, medieval literature, or atmospheric physics - precisely because, as I have quite openly acknowledged, this isn't an area I have any depth of expertise in. Acknowledging the limits of one's knowledge, instead of pretending to be expert on something you are not, is not a bad thing. Perhaps you might like to try it sometime.

Well...
... there, where you started talking about 'removing your tin foil'.

All I have done is point out flaws in your position on the issue, and call out what seems to be a concerted set of ad hominems on fransknorge (indeed, the mods have been busy - in the last few days you made several rather more abusive and xenophobic posts which have vanished). For you to accuse me of 'attacking' you for this is very much the pot calling the kettle black.

Have a lovely afternoon.

The NHS is less likely to get overwhelmed in peak Summer than in Winter, so if you are going to let this third wave see its own way out, now is the best time to do it. There is also the plus that we are starting the school holidays now, so if you feel that you can no longer force people into lockdown situations, better to let go now than in a few months time.

it always frustrated me when directly asked what the number is for the NHS to be overwhelmed during his pressers, boris and co have never been able to answer a very basic question.

now i see they do not know which is even more baffling, as it is really difficult to "protect the NHS" if we do not even know when they are overwhelmed. we seem to only know it when we passed the point!

I understand the "seasonality" factor does, in fact, matter. It's most likely sound to state that you'd prefer a peak of size x today rather than a peak of size x in, say, December. HOWEVER, this ignores another aspect of the intertemporal tradeoff.

In a few months, the share of fully vaccinated people will be considerably higher. Everything else equal, if fewer people are susceptible, that will make the wave less severe. I've read that my home country Germany had ~4 000 infections among 975 000 fully vaccinated people. Most of those 4k cases where mild. I am not an expert and cannot be sure how robust those numbers are. But taken at face value, these numbers suggest fully vaccinated persons can basically be removed from the susceptibles. Currently, 53.5% of the population in the UK is fully vaccinated. If that number was up to 75% two or three months from now, you'd expect very different infection dynamics.

Have a look here:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/33413083-post9489.html

Sensitive, much :)

Tin foil = conspiracy theorist? I did not know that. I was using it in the context of paranoia normally associated with people that think the government is trying to read their minds. Happy to clear that up.

As you seem keen to keep bringing up another poster, you might want to have a little look at their posts on FT. He/she/it is more than capable of dishing it out so you reap what you sow.

I don't think you attacked me in the slightest. You are getting challenged, you can't give any answers, you deflect that you are not an expert, and just generally change the subject. Basically the only position you hold appaers to be "zero-covid". I'm not expecting an expert answer. I just want to know what level of risk floats your boat. I am happy to nail my colours to the mast on this and have since day 1. If you can't or won't that's fine.

This issue has been addressed by previous posters, cf. #6582. Your are merely repeating a claim to which a rebuttal was alread posted.

In short, there is already a cost today. If an operation for appendicitis is postponed, that carries a risk. If a cancer treatment must start a week or two later, that may worsen the prognosis.

There isn't a set number per se because of regional differences in both cases and available beds. And the ratio of population per available bed isn't uniform over the UK. Honestly, having met a few people who were reassigned to covid wards from other jobs (including physios), it wasn't far off overwhelming the whole system, the people themselves will need a while to recover, and of course as pointed out before patients with other conditions will be in a massive backlog.

​​​​​All that to say, I don't think Boris or anyone in HMG could have given a definitive number.

The number of people in hospital peaked at almost 40,000 in January. As I recall that put severe pressure on the NHS, but it did cope. That was during the winter. You could argue that the NHS could cope with a bit more during the summer. It would obviously be much better not to because of the problems for other treatments. Currently we have around 4,000 in hospital. It has pretty much doubled in 2 weeks. I think we will know in a month or so if we are heading for a problem.

As has been mentioned several times before, there already is a problem. As of today, elective procedures are being postponed by English hospitals under stress. At best, that adversely affects the quality of life of some (e.g., someone is in pain while waiting for hip surgery), at worst, additional deaths result (e.g., a breast cancer operation is postponed; as a consequence, the patient dies).

It's a sliding scale. Overwhelmed does not just mean people dying from a lack of ventilators or while queueing up in an ambulance until a space in the emergency room opens up.

How long is a piece of string ?
This is not an answerable question because of the many variables. The answer would be different depending on the backlog, the seasonal viruses, local pandemic situation (outbreak of any viruses), staffing situation, moral of the staff, equipment, etc ... Now this question needs some sort of answer via modelling based on various scenarios and assumptions, and I believe this is an action point for SAGE.
But currently, the NHS is on the verge of being overwhelmed, with the current numbers, with the current staff (and its very low moral), with the current equipment.

There has been posted several views on exit strategy that try to have minimal impact on freedoms.

A very interesting thread, thanks for all of the discussion. I have some skin in the game, my annual check up for a rare disease condition was postponed last year, I would be concerned were the same to happen again.

I also happen to work adjacent to the NHS and my research is funded in part by them. One thing not discussed is the huge impact on non-COVID clinical research. Even though the NHS coped (just) in the winter, and is coping now, vital clinical research is 18 months behind, been suspended or abandoned with multiple research programs in taters.

I am extremely keen for a return to normality but IMHO (I am a geneticist not a virologist or epidemiologist) a slower easing of restrictions would have sat well with me.

The CMO however will not be taking these decisions lightly. Even so I suspect a surprise trip away in October for my wife my be ruled out by new restrictions.

Daily data:

Cases 48,161 (31,772 last Sunday)
Deaths 25 (26)
People vaccinated up to and including 17 July 2021:
First dose: 46,295,853
Second dose: 35,970,849

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 43.3% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 39.4%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 40.4 today. As usual for a Sunday, case numbers have taken a bit of a U-turn. Data tomorrow will be delayed or missing from me as I return to Blighty and may be ageing at T2 immigration.