Coronavirus

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Wearing masks protects others from you, as long as other people are wearing them I'll extend the same courtesy, it'd be rude not to.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57718061

It “makes no sense” to stop wearing face masks in enclosed public spaces, says the chairman of the British Medical Association, Dr Chaand Nagpaul.

He told Radio 4's today programme: “We know that face masks are proven to reduce spread of this infection if worn by everyone around you, including yourself.”

He says the BMA can’t understand why – at a time where there are “exceptional high levels of cases" – we would "knowingly want people to become infected”.

He asks why should people be exposed “against their will” to the virus when “it's so simple” for them to be protected “to a significant degree” by people wearing masks.

I suspect that most champions of ‘personal freedom’ really mean only "their own personal freedom" and aren’t prepared to ensure that vulnerable people maintain their "personal freedom", or worry/care about the impact of Long COVID or further variants.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Damien

Restrictions, especially those enforced via the law, do need to end at some point though. If the legal requirement isn't removed now then when? The summer strikes me as a useful point because any surge can happen now rather than the winter.

That’s assuming this government have the competence, or the will, to control said surge. If they’re just going to throw their hands up and let it rip so be it.

However I don’t think anyone should be acting under the pretence that this is a positive for the economy and/or wider public health to do so. If the response to an inevitable surge ends up with a significant number of people acting in a risk averse manner for a sustained period of time the businesses (and staff) many profess to be acting in the concern for will go to the wall anyway. All we’ve done is withdraw the financial support packages that have been in place for 17 months. That said for some I suspect that’s entirely the point.

I’ll be the first to put my hands up and say businesses need financial support and I’m happy for the state to do so. I wonder how many join me?

---------- Post added at 10:24 ---------- Previous post was at 09:51 ----------

https://www.timesofisrael.com/minist...s-delta-cases/

Israel considering limits on large gatherings and bringing back Covid certificates to access certain venues/events. Just as well we’re exceptional.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by jfman

And while they could do as heero_yuy suggests it’s economically undesirable. People took that much personal responsibility in Sweden they went into recession anyway despite “no restrictions”.

Of course Sweden went into recession. No exports and major food and other imports. No business = recession. The forces at work in the Pandemic go beyond personal responsibility.

[heero_yuy]

Quote from The Sun:

Singapore could become one of the first countries to stop recording daily Covid case numbers in a bid to get life back to normal by treating the virus "like the flu".

The south-east Asian country has recorded just 36 deaths since the start of the pandemic by implementing draconian rules to curb the infection rate, and officials now want to ditch measures such as counting infection numbers each day.

A blueprint has been laid out by three leading members of Singapore's Covid-19 taskforce to end 18 months of tough restrictions in order to restore quarantine-free travel and public gatherings.

The city-state, which has a population of 5.7million, has recorded 62,617 cases to date - but this proposal would see an end to a daily tally count.

The hope is to let people "get on with their lives" by scrapping tough rules and instead controlling the virus through other means, such as mass vaccination and better treatments.

"Instead of monitoring Covid-19 infection numbers every day, we will focus on the outcomes," the trade, finance and health ministers wrote in a joint op-ed in the Straits Times.

"How many fall very sick, how many in the intensive care unit, how many need to be intubated for oxygen, and so on. This is like how we now monitor influenza.

“We can't eradicate it, but we can turn the pandemic into something much less threatening, like influenza, hand, foot and mouth disease, or chickenpox, and get on with our lives.”

Hopefully we're on the same trajectory to have Covid as threatening as normal flu once enough people have been jabbed and/or have had Covid.

[jfman]

Notably Singapore announced this over a week ago, and described it as a process “over the next few months”.

While The Sun are presenting this as if our Government are doing the same/similar it’s quite a significant difference from let it rip. Their starting point - for as and when they move to this - is also significantly better with cases averaging in the low double digits per day across the whole population. We have the low treble digits per 100k.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Hopefully we're on the same trajectory to have Covid as threatening as normal flu once enough people have been jabbed and/or have had Covid.

You can't get long flu but you can get long Covid though.

[Carth]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

You can't get long flu but you can get long Covid though.

Strange how 'long covid' has become a major talking point, yet the health issues reportedly known (and some as yet unknown) by the vaccines are seemingly classed as a risk worth taking . . .

[jfman]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

You can't get long flu but you can get long Covid though.

When they say “live with it like the flu” and we say it we mean fundamentally different things. When they say they plan to not publish daily figures it’s because figures in the low tens across an entire population are meaningless. At the point of vaccine maximisation the chances of meeting an infected person with prevalence that low is near-zero.

The chances of a vaccinated person catching Covid reduces the chance of infection even further, with a greater chance of asymptomatic infection, lower risk of hospitalisation, death and onward transmission.

They don’t mean 150,000 or more people getting infected per week is acceptable.

When they say they won’t report daily testing figures it’s because the effective monitoring will be hospital admissions. If half a dozen people rock up on the same day to the same hospital you’d quickly find that area and region back in SARS response mode - test, trace, isolate etc.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

You can't get long flu but you can get long Covid though.

Post-viral syndrome.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

You can't get long flu but you can get long Covid though.

Of course you, you can get long term after affects from contracting any virius.

"Long Covid" is just a catchy name

Long term after affects of a recent novel flu virius researched here

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17497-6

---------- Post added at 16:02 ---------- Previous post was at 15:59 ----------

Originally Posted by Hugh

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57718061

I suspect that most champions of ‘personal freedom’ really mean only "their own personal freedom" and aren’t prepared to ensure that vulnerable people maintain their "personal freedom", or worry/care about the impact of Long COVID or further variants.

I think the younger generation have done their bit.

[Hom3r]

Whatever rules are put in place, I will still wear a mask inside for the foreseeable future.


I know that people on my town's FB page that there will be no difference, as they have refused to wear them since day one.

[jfman]

Boris along with some comforting words ignoring the science any minute now to the glee of many. Let’s hope the dice roll is two sixes or it’s lockdown by September.

At this stage Israel had vaccine certification, retained masks, distancing etc. to support opening up in a safe manner.

[Carth]

Originally Posted by jfman

Boris along with some comforting words ignoring the science any minute now to the glee of many. Let’s hope the dice roll is two sixes or it’s lockdown by September.

At this stage Israel had vaccine certification, retained masks, distancing etc. to support opening up in a safe manner.

No matter how the dice rolls, we'll be in lockdown again soon . . . haven't you heard of the four new variants being readied for release?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Carth

No matter how the dice rolls, we'll be in lockdown again soon . . . haven't you heard of the four new variants being readied for release?

The government have been suckling on the teet of these new powers for a long time now, and they like it. The sooner they can get back on the tit, the better for them.

[jfman]

They’ll be using emergency powers again soon enough, Pierre so I’d not worry too much.

The problem with leaving things to personal judgement - e.g. distancing, masks is that it puts wider public health at the mercy of the stupidest people in society. Those who at worst are covid-deniers and at best are just going to take risks regardless downplaying symptoms they have in their own mind and neither testing nor isolating.