Re: Coronavirus
 

Indeed, but then, this wouldn't be the first time the government have said something and then done a U turn in the space of hours.

We'll see (or won't see) soon enough i guess

Re: Coronavirus
 

Now that I can believe. Because there's certainly no evidential reason to introduce any measures.

Re: Coronavirus
 

& the independent.

Can just imagine the conversation.

'Right then chaps, we need to subvert some of the proles & the media due to getting caught out, anyone got any ideas?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Project Fear stepped up a gear again this evening.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yep, those 161 reported deaths today were probably just from fear.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Arbitrary bollocks.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Deaths are reported everyday, so whats your point exactly ?

(If you even bothered to watch it, Whitty made a point of not saying they were rising atm).

Re: Coronavirus
 

It seems proportionate at this time. Though again he was as vague as possible.


Masks to be extended - but to where? Eating and drinking is impossible with a mask on, so no surprises there. Exercise is difficult with a mask on, singing is too (if you do it properly - I'm a singer and would find it difficult to sing with a mask on if not impossible, though I suppose people mumbling along to a hymn in church will probably be ok). Are we going to have the mask hokey cokey we had before in hospitality, which directly contravenes the current guidelines on the Gov site? If so why the u-turn? Though the current situation doesn't really go far enough (but covers essential trips). If you're in a museum you don't wear one in the museum itself but do in the shop? And if you're in a theatre, sat around the same people for hours, you don't, but in a shop where you're in for a matter of minutes not around the same people you do?


Vax passports - putting aside how beneficial they actually are, then this was vague too. So he said about venues with certain capacity limits but what does this mean? Any place where 500 people will gather indoors needs one? At least the outdoors places over 10,000 means Derby County don't have to worry about it ;)


And as I said the other day, WFH should have been done first.


It also seems that the testing instead of isolation is a better compromise. If you don't have covid there's no reason why you should isolate and it gets the positive tests quicker.


Early Jan review - for tightening restrictions again like last year?

Re: Coronavirus
 

680 hospitalisations a day in England in not a minor matter, especially when the number of infections is rising so rapidly(doubling every 3 days).


Eating and drinking by themselves are less of a transmission problem, but any talking aspect whilst having a meal or drink, IS more of a transmission problem. Anything that involves expelling more breath is more of a problem. Any contaminated air travels further.

Re: Coronavirus
 

They aren't.

Cases are going up, but not massively so (we are actually in the same territory as when unlocking, with schools due to finish in a week or so).


But we don't know how much of this is Delta and how much is Omicron. The numbers of Omicron are likely to be some multiples higher than the actual figure, this is always true. And we don't know much about this variant yet.


There is also the situation that hospitalisations and subsequently deaths lag cases by weeks. If as some models predict that Omicron cases will hit 100k a day by January, even if this takes over Delta, and has a similar hospitalisation rate, you'd be looking at double the current numbers of hospitalisations. If it's able to defeat the vaccines to the extent it makes this higher, then there will be an issue.


This is simply buying time and makes a fair amount of sense.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If it were project fear wouldn’t the boffins be implying that deaths are rising ?

Wfh vast majority of people will probably be loving that
Masks, hardly a major imposition.
I was however surprised regarding vaccine passports

Re: Coronavirus
 

I think that was the number of Omicron infections, its replacing Delta.
From memory, it was something like 0.9% of all infections on his graph ?
It is rising fast though, as it takes over from Delta, and will almost certainly become dominant, just as Delta took over from Alpha

Re: Coronavirus
 

I still don't think masks are effective enough to consider the inconvenience but it's logical to do what has been and seems to have sensible exceptions. And if it does reduce transmission by a small amount even 5% that still makes a difference in a context of high infections.


Vax passports - well, quite. Given that the vaccines still do work against Delta in terms of hospitalisations, but have a marked drop off with infection against 2 doses compared to original strains or Alpha, then even then there was no guarantee if someone had a vax passport that they weren't going to have covid. And that Omicron has more of a drop off, so there will no doubt be more double jabbed people who get it - not too surprising considering this represents the vast majority here now. It seems that the "alternative" of a negative LFT is ultimately much more useful.

---------- Post added at 19:30 ---------- Previous post was at 19:28 ----------

Ok so the concern here is that Omicron is doubling every 2-3 days, which is a lot.


I'm sure you understand exponential growth, so not going to emphasise what that means.



But if it can overtake Delta, which the signs are that it can (it's more transmissible which seems to be the key) and that if it can infect more people who are double jabbed, this number will no doubt get very high very quickly.


And as we have no idea how many of these cases will reach hospital, if the jabs still work against this, or if the milder illness is the case and they won't get that sick anyway, then they have to assume it will, and try and slow it down.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Deaths and hospitalisations are no higher than they were in Aug/Sep. The rise in Infections has not transposed to a rise in deaths or hospitalisations as yet.

At this moment in time any increase in restrictions is a speculative move, not grounded in any data. The proposed restrictions themselves are arbitrary in nature and are also not grounded in any data.

I haven’t done what I’m told, just because I’ve been told, since I was a child, and I’m not starting again now.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Keep drinking red wine in copious amounts, seems to work wonders.;)