elbows
Well-Known Member
In some ways getting people to do less than the formal restrictions allow has usually been part of their equations, and I'm saying that now because its increasingly obvious at the moment via the governments current rhetoric.
It will soon be a year since Van-Tam told people not to tear the pants out of it. Then they had to resort to a lot of that sort of messaging in the buildup to Christmas, and now they have various reasons to do the same again. Even without the new variant concerns of this moment, they'd probably have resorted to some of this cautious message now, to compensate for some of the riskier aspects of their chosen unlocking timetable.
There are cetainly exceptions to that, especially in the middle of last year when Johnson made premature attempts to get more people back to workplaces, and initially had an unrealistic hopes about when schools would reopen. And of course there was the eat out to help out scheme which was designed to encourage many people back to certain normal settings for meals. Should they attempt that sort of thing again at some point, I will take it as a sign that the data gives them reason to think that the pandemic has really reached a stage where less behavioural changes/reduced contacts changes are required to keep things within the levels they can cope with.
Authorities and especially politicians with Johnsons sort of ideological beliefs would have liked to have been able to rely mostly on that sort of messaging and the resulting behavioural changes in order to manage the pandemic, rather than all the draconian stuff they ended up having to do, but the pandemic virus was too transmissible and deadly for that approach to do the job, they had to go so much further into previously unthinkable territory. But we should still expect them to return to the classic approach as soon as the pandemic numbers game seems likely to allow. Indeed it was pretty clear in both of Johnsons pandemic press conferences this week that the 'leave it to individuals judgement' rhetoric was in full effect, the journey in that direction has begun big time, to replace the formal brakes.
If the new variant causes a load of shit then we'll get to see how far and for how long they try to get this lack of formal brakes phase to carry all the strain, or whether they reach a point of u-turn once again. If the new variant doesnt cause as many problems as feared, then relief and exasperation that this was some kind of 'false alarm' could I suppose cause a behavioural bounce back in the other direction, towards more behavioural normality in a month or so than people currently think seems likely.
If I was in charge and had no love of rushed timescales and no particular desire to stop to using formal brakes as soon as possible, then I would have picked an unlocking timetable that lined up better with the vaccination programmes conclusion of the adult phase at least, and I would have wanted peoples confidence to grow in better sync with the unlocking steps as a result. Variants would still have been a potential complication to this, so I'd have tried to avoid giving dates too far in advance. But I suppose that isnt so easy when journalists and businesses are crying out for 'certainty'. What they actually get when their demands are met is only a feeble form of certainty though, no matter what anyone says or promises real certainty cannot be assured. Especially not when they need confident punters to provide a certain level of footfall for their business to be in profit.
It will soon be a year since Van-Tam told people not to tear the pants out of it. Then they had to resort to a lot of that sort of messaging in the buildup to Christmas, and now they have various reasons to do the same again. Even without the new variant concerns of this moment, they'd probably have resorted to some of this cautious message now, to compensate for some of the riskier aspects of their chosen unlocking timetable.
There are cetainly exceptions to that, especially in the middle of last year when Johnson made premature attempts to get more people back to workplaces, and initially had an unrealistic hopes about when schools would reopen. And of course there was the eat out to help out scheme which was designed to encourage many people back to certain normal settings for meals. Should they attempt that sort of thing again at some point, I will take it as a sign that the data gives them reason to think that the pandemic has really reached a stage where less behavioural changes/reduced contacts changes are required to keep things within the levels they can cope with.
Authorities and especially politicians with Johnsons sort of ideological beliefs would have liked to have been able to rely mostly on that sort of messaging and the resulting behavioural changes in order to manage the pandemic, rather than all the draconian stuff they ended up having to do, but the pandemic virus was too transmissible and deadly for that approach to do the job, they had to go so much further into previously unthinkable territory. But we should still expect them to return to the classic approach as soon as the pandemic numbers game seems likely to allow. Indeed it was pretty clear in both of Johnsons pandemic press conferences this week that the 'leave it to individuals judgement' rhetoric was in full effect, the journey in that direction has begun big time, to replace the formal brakes.
If the new variant causes a load of shit then we'll get to see how far and for how long they try to get this lack of formal brakes phase to carry all the strain, or whether they reach a point of u-turn once again. If the new variant doesnt cause as many problems as feared, then relief and exasperation that this was some kind of 'false alarm' could I suppose cause a behavioural bounce back in the other direction, towards more behavioural normality in a month or so than people currently think seems likely.
If I was in charge and had no love of rushed timescales and no particular desire to stop to using formal brakes as soon as possible, then I would have picked an unlocking timetable that lined up better with the vaccination programmes conclusion of the adult phase at least, and I would have wanted peoples confidence to grow in better sync with the unlocking steps as a result. Variants would still have been a potential complication to this, so I'd have tried to avoid giving dates too far in advance. But I suppose that isnt so easy when journalists and businesses are crying out for 'certainty'. What they actually get when their demands are met is only a feeble form of certainty though, no matter what anyone says or promises real certainty cannot be assured. Especially not when they need confident punters to provide a certain level of footfall for their business to be in profit.
