Quote:
Originally Posted by jfman
What’s the agenda?
Wanting less hospitalisation, less death and a better economic recovery? I’m not sure there’s really anything untoward or unreasonable than that as a position to take.
Cases are less severe than before vaccination, and cases are less likely to die than before vaccination, but clearly if more people catch it more people will have severe cases and deaths (versus less people catching it). These figures still track, but at lower levels than they used to.
Vaccines waning are a legitimate concern as we go into the winter and other countries are pushing a booster dose for all 18+. If that’s the route to go down, shouldn’t we also take it? Or should we bury our heads in the sand as there’s genuinely nothing we can learn from observing anywhere else and their experience? I’d contend that anyone taking that stance would be the one with the agenda, and not my stance.
|
I agree we should do all of the above but I did definitely sniff an agenda in that Grauniad report. For my taste they were not nearly curious enough about the reasons behind policy decisions and far to willing to assume they’re comparing like-with-like. The BBC ran a very similar piece a couple of days ago, but the main difference was they were willing to examine the fact that European nations, ever since the beginning of the pandemic, have not gone through their waves at the same time, and are not doing so now.
An uncritical snapshot of comparative levels of infection and death between European countries doesn’t really tell us very much about our pandemic response. It probably tells us more about the Grauniad’s editorial agenda.