Quote:
Originally Posted by jfman
I’m not going to extensively engage in your misinformation exercise, I’ll leave that to Hugh, however we absolutely know that without some kind of intervention cases will continue to rise.
Many have gone before you denying the inevitable rise of the virus and been proven incorrect time and again.
As I say restrictions are inevitable - Javid acknowledges this reading between the lines - the only question is where and when. The most effective time is absolutely now.
The economic impact is a red herring. When even a small proportion of people - the clinically vulnerable, their families spend less up to large proportions - those who can work from home continue to do so all winter against a backdrop of rising cases many businesses will be adversely affected in any case. They will just do so without Government support.
Hospitalisations rising isn’t speculation. It’s inevitable without intervention.
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But none of this is true based on the current data. It may be more revealing when the ONS publish this week's report tomorrow, but
this trend is pretty clear, and given that the trend is well below 2% in any of the more at risk groups, then it is not yet inevitable that the cases will end in increased hospitalisations. Though if we do get some more significant spill over in the older age groups, who are better protected with vaccination, then yes this will happen, and yes, restrictions will then presumably be inevitable.
It's half term in some places here, and next week in some more, some places even have 2 weeks here. That will probably do a fair amount to halt the spread in this group, More so if a lot of the cases are in the SW, for reasons detailed earlier.
It will probably be better to target restrictions at this hotspot if it doesn't - returning to school bubbles, remote teaching, after school clubs scaled back, distancing and masks with secondary kids, accelerated vax take up, local restrictions in Bristol etc, rather than a national approach, but then we did see last year that local lockdowns weren't wholly effective.
The point about people staying away from things naturally is valid and that's a decision they will naturally have to take based on their own personal circumstances and responsibility, but, the point of closing restaurants etc, surely removes that discretion for people who aren't at risk, and let's be fair in the case of something like nightclubs, that's a sector which is predominantly visited by the younger age groups, pretty much under 30s, who are neither massively at risk from hospitalisation or death nor likely to exercise caution, which isn't overall a bad thing, you're not likely to get older people or people with health conditions in there, and presumably if you do, they are aware it's a virus risk. Though the subsequent risk of spill over infections still needs to be considered.
It strikes me more that Javid was saying to the hesitant, look, it's still there, if you don't get your jabs, we may need to restrict, which seemed to be a reinforcement of plan A predominantly, to make it work better, but saying, look if you don't we will have to move in the other direction, to be honest WFH is probably the most useful measure they would be able to implement. That guidance really should have continued to be reinforced until we're through the winter.