Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
Indeed.
Sooner or later we have to move from preventing the spread of covid to learning how to live with it. It is never going away, and I am curious to know what those who think we should rush back to restrictions, think the exit plan should be.
The scientists who say restrictions will reduce spread are stating the obvious (or at least it’s obvious to us now we’ve been at this for 18 months) but they are speaking from their own expertise, to their own area of expertise. They are concerned with epidemiology, or resource management in the NHS, but they aren’t factoring in issues like the long-term mental well-being of those facing further prolonged separation from loved ones or activities that give their lives meaning and they aren’t factoring in the long-term effect on the economy. Nor should they; there are other experts for that.
It is the politicians job to listen to the expert views from all angles and then devise policy that balances those views for the good of the nation as a whole. The politicians are not necessarily getting it wrong just because they don’t do everything one group of experts wants.
Here in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon is still furiously virtue signalling and demanding everyone keeps wearing masks in shops, schools etc; in my experience there’s about 60-70% observance of this in major shopping centres but easily less than 15% observance at the university I have just left (but which I now work next door to) and in office and warehouse environments I have visited recently there is next to zero observance at all. Everybody knows we are in the endgame now and that sooner or later we’re all going to catch it. If we’re going to get used to anything, it should be repeated cycles of vaccination and (hopefully) mild infection.
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The important thing is that the vaccination is turning people getting it, spending months on a ventilator and maybe dying into people getting it and having a week or so in bed with a cold. Yes, some people will be more severely ill, but these will always slip through as the immune system isn't perfect nor is a vaccine.
As for masks, well yes there is no doubt they do have some effect but it's likely overstated in terms of a policy regarding mass mask wearing whenever out of the house, as has been dictated in some parts of Aus.
Probably the most useful aspect of mask wearing (aside from virtue signalling) is that it will reduce the spread from someone who has covid, but then, if you think you have covid because you have symptoms of it, you shouldn't be out the house anyway, and should be isolating and getting a PCR test. So the only real benefit would come from people who are either completely asymptomatic, are shedding the virus before getting symptoms, or have symptoms but don't think it's covid. In all these cases being vaccinated reduces the chance of this anyway. You could quite easily swap the masks with saying that people might be best to do a LFT every other day or indeed any day you're going somewhere where you're likely to be with a lot of people meaning the chances of having an asymptomatic infection is reduced.