[jfman]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

The fact that the government didn't make it 'mandatory' does not excuse a so-called 'professional' health service from sending infected patients back into care homes! The professionals I worked with during my employment have all had their own professional codes of practice. Does the NHS not have one that provides that no-one with a highly contageous and deadly disease should be discharged into the community? If not, why not?

Why did the Government guidance explicitly say it wasn’t a requirement then, if they were actually leaving it to be a judgement call?

And laughable Old Boy that you now acknowledge it as highly contagious and deadly when you were underplaying it for so long. It’ll go away in the summer, won’t it?

It's you who is going round in circles, jfman. There is no proof of anything with the figures. They are a correct statement of current figures, but you keep putting them in the context of deaths in other countries, who compile their figures in different ways. Moreover, the virus is still out there - the most recent serious outbreak is in Melbourne, which threatens the whole of Australia with a second peak. This will keep happening until the 'herd immunity', which you dismiss so casually, is achieved.

I casually dismiss it because it’s not a credible solution - Melbourne are indeed going into a lockdown. They do not take these decisions “casually”, it’s the emergency break to stop the spread - one that we will apply just as we had to in March if other measures are unsuccessful at slowing the spread.

Don't expect a vaccine any time soon. We may have scientists all over the world working on it, but we have not found an effective one against any coronovirus yet, and we are unlikely to in the foreseeable future.

The virus is here to stay until it is finished with us. We either prolong the agony or we acknowledge it for what it is, protecting the vulnerable.

The time to judge is when this is over. This is nothing to do with Brexit.

I asbsolutely cannot wait until it is over and I can reflect on being vindicated throughout. Years of economic calamity for countries with no effective public health response, economic prosperity for those who do.

There’s no return to ‘normal’ without a vaccine Old Boy, to claim there is holds no more validity than to claim the earth to be flat. Even if we went down the herd immunity route, making the NHS the Coronavirus Health Service for two years or more leaving to the side important lifesaving treatments for cancer etc, it would take so long and damage the economy without any knowledge of how long any meaningful immunity lasts.

If this idea is so good why did we bother locking down in March? It’s a waste of time, effort and money to end up in the same situation in September but apply no brakes.

Of course those who can see no wrong in any of the Government responses will find some kind of mental gymnastics, as always, to pursue the agenda that the Government is always right even when it contradicts itself.