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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Virologist Victor Racaniello's now somewhat jaded perspective is skewed by being based in the USA, but he is uncompromising now that the vaccine is so readily available there - but he leaves out the vulnerable and immunocompromised when there is not enough prophylactic medication for them ...

 
I'm sure the relevant public sector organizations have already had pandemic-related plans for staff absences. But there's a difference between having a plan on the shelf and actually using it to prepare for a specific actuality that is presenting itself. No one knew before Christmas that there were unlikely to be further restrictions announced for example.
But some of the Omicron modelling used, which as I mentioned earlier the likes of Triggle are making use of for an agenda now, suggested that any late lockdowns etc from now on would not make a notable difference to the peak level of infections. So as soon as government decided not to act strongly weeks ago, the very high level of infections were pretty much locked in, and widespread staffing disruptions became inevitable.
 
I’m getting interested in the psychology of people’s views on this. I felt under attack on this threadfor saying a couple of weeks ago that I was cautiously optimistic because 5 old fully vaxed people in my Dad’s care home in London had tested positive for probably Omicron and recovered after very mild or totally symptomless infection.

The danger is far from over.

But when we got the vaccines case rates decoupled from the rate of hospitalization and death. Evidence is growing that Omnicron IS milder.

Saying this doesn’t mean I’m heartless or don’t care about vulnerable people FFS.

Drop the bullshit use of the word decoupled for a start. The ratio of people requiring hospitalisation is changing as a result of things you mention. But the link has not been severed, there will always be a link, and the ultimate aim of the authorities is to get the hospitalisation ratio down to a level where they no longer feel that many millions of infections can cause a number of hospitalisations that threatens the ability of the NHS to function.

If they reach that point with high confidence, then they will feel like they can start to remove some of the other aspects which cause disruption during pandemic waves. They will no longer feel the need to mass test everyone, and to require so much self-isolation. They wont feel the need to turn on the heavy mood music in the news, something they clearly did still feel the need to do when the Omicron wave arrived. So clearly we are not at that stage yet, so there is no point implying we are. We are closer to this than we were. How bad the Omicron wave turns out to be will have an impact on how quickly attitudes move further along this path in 2022.

Reaching that stage in a way that is then demonstrated to be sustainable will have a notable impact on attitudes. There will still be some people unhappy with the way things are handled, but the prevailing attitude on forums like this one will be different, a different sense of balance will be in effect. Indeed we are already part of the way through this journey, as demonstrated by a different mix of attitudes here this time towards further restrictions in December. But get too far ahead of this game and setbacks become inevitable.

People will go on that journey at different speeds, and there are opportunities to annoy each other when we have very different attitudes about how close to the final destination we are. Some attitudes expressed here right into December were not entirely sustainable and required adjustment once the size of the Omicron wave became apparent. Those journeys will resume with renewed confidence if the Omicron NHS burden is on the lower end of projections, but if things get really messy then there will be setbacks to this. Various different sets of 'told you so' are waiting in the wings, ready to bolster some peoples stances and trash others. I've tried to hedge my bets to some extent but I still stuck rigidly to certain guns, and under some scenarios I'll have to move away from some of those guns going forwards.
 
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I’m getting interested in the psychology of people’s views on this. I felt under attack on this threadfor saying a couple of weeks ago that I was cautiously optimistic because 5 old fully vaxed people in my Dad’s care home in London had tested positive for probably Omicron and recovered after very mild or totally symptomless infection.

The danger is far from over.

But when we got the vaccines case rates decoupled from the rate of hospitalization and death. Evidence is growing that Omnicron IS milder.

Saying this doesn’t mean I’m heartless or don’t care about vulnerable people FFS.
There's a lot of context and history to why you get that reaction.

Since the very beginning of the pandemic, back in the mists of time in Feb/Mar 2020, there's been people who've sought to downplay the seriousness of Covid and wanted a minimum of public health measures enacted. People like the right of the Tory Party (Steve Baker & the CRG), the right wing press (special mention for the Telegraph), a small group of sceptical scientists given prominence as they say what those first two groups want to hear (Carl Hennigan for example). Away from the establishment there's also the anti-vaxxers and conspiraloons, but they have little sway over government policy, so they're mainly just a noisy irritant.

After the shock of the first wave they spent last Autumn resisting new measures and complaining about gloomy scientists as the pre-vaccine wave grew into inevitable catastrophe. There were a number of people popping up here parroting their arguments, refusing to believe that last winter would be as bad as it was. They all went very quiet when the inevitable did happen.

At the moment there is no inevitability. We're in uncharted territory due to the vaccine programme and the evolution of the virus.

Almost the first thing people heard about Omicron was that South African doctor saying it's milder. Even as scientists were browning their pants over the alarming mutations in the Omicron strain the phrase 'it's mild' echoed around the world. And those exact same voices - the ones that had been downplaying Covid all along, that spent last autumn dismissing fears of a huge wave of death in winter 20/21, that are back to saying 'it's just flu' - started telling people that it's all over now, time to live with it and get back to acting like it never happened, no need for any restrictions to control the spread, it's all good now. And an exhausted population has been only too happy to receive that message, even as the government's own scientific advisors were warning that even a milder strain would put huge pressure on the NHS, that there could be chaos if it was left to spread freely.

So when people pop up here repeating phrases used by those right wing types that have been very wrong before the reaction can be hostile. Of course, Omicron does appear to be different to what came before, but we're by no means out of the woods yet and trying to understand what is happening and what will happen next is made much harder by a group of people who've made up their mind that the most optimistic possibility is the only possibility. And when people arrive here using stock phrases and arguments from those anti-public health measure types, they can be triggered and go all :hmm:
 
it shouldn‘t be seen as ‘siding with the anti-public health measures faction’ if you can manage to keep an open mind on the data that’s coming in.
 
it shouldn‘t be seen as ‘siding with the anti-public health measures faction’ if you can manage to keep an open mind on the data that’s coming in.
Let me guess, I bet you do your own research and consider yourself politically "centrist" ?
 
it shouldn‘t be seen as ‘siding with the anti-public health measures faction’ if you can manage to keep an open mind on the data that’s coming in.
I'm trying to keep an open mind on the data that's coming in, but that keeps getting clouded by those same people who keeping seizing on every positive piece of data, or what looks like a positive piece of data, and shouting 'look it's all over'.

There is positive data, which makes me think we're at the beginning of the end of all this, but there's also plenty of negative too, which means we've got a way to go yet.

My aunt's ex died of Covid on Monday. My brother's mother-in-law spent the week before Xmas in hospital with Covid and although she's been discharged she's deteriorated significantly, barely speaks or recognises anyone. I've been stuck at home all week as my son has Covid (he's fine, loving the chance to stay in and play too many video games).

There shouldn't be sides in a public health emergency, but the politics around it makes it hard to avoid.
 
I dunno how much spare run time you think schools have got to produce all these contingency plans whilst also doing 'catch up' from the last two school closures and operating with chronic staff shortages.

e2a: That and the government repeatedly saying 'we will not close schools' right before they close the schools. First time round they had got to the point of threatening legal action to force schools to stay open, less than a week before they were all unilaterally closed. Could you make a contingency plan for that?
Same story at the university I work at - despite us (the unions) urging for plans for restarting in Jan management specifically refused to discuss it because they are taking their lead from the government.
 
Same story at the university I work at - despite us (the unions) urging for plans for restarting in Jan management specifically refused to discuss it because they are taking their lead from the government.
But how would the vice-chancellor get their future knighthood if they made plans to address a situation that the government doesn’t want to acknowledge?
 
My own place, a university, was boasting about how much face to face teaching it had conducted, just a fortnight ago. In fact near universal face to face teaching has been management's response to dire National Student Survey results (rather than dealing with understaffing and oppressive managerialism/bullying).
 
I guess it makes sense: the only people who really bother with this thread are the doom mongers. And so people like me who are triple vaxxed, wear a mask, have been minimising social interaction to almost nothing, testing when visiting people, but then express the idea - as put out by scientists in the media - that there is some end in sight, which yes, includes living with the virus killing people, are then seen as heartless crazy Tory Gov spokesmen. Bit silly really.
 
I guess it makes sense: the only people who really bother with this thread are the doom mongers. And so people like me who are triple vaxxed, wear a mask, have been minimising social interaction to almost nothing, testing when visiting people,
We only have your word for that ... :hmm:
 
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I guess it makes sense: the only people who really bother with this thread are the doom mongers. And so people like me who are triple vaxxed, wear a mask, have been minimising social interaction to almost nothing, testing when visiting people, but then express the idea - as put out by scientists in the media - that there is some end in sight, which yes, includes living with the virus killing people, are then seen as heartless crazy Tory Gov spokesmen. Bit silly really.
The idea that posters are 'doom mongers' just doesn't fit even a casual reading. There's a recognition that the current wave may well be milder and that the rate of hospitalisations is almost certainly lower. But there's also an (informed) view that there are very real risks with regard to staff shortages in public services, along with the notion that the government haven't even got any meaningful post equine bolting stable doors in place.
 
dunno about that - there's a fair amount of catatrophising on the thread (and elsewhere) - while it's understandable how people have got that way it's also something that needs challenging from time to time.
I was thinking particularly about Omicron, so the last couple of weeks or so. Certainly an initial outbreak of 'of fuck, here we go again, this will be as bad as before', but my impression is things have been more measured about hospitalisations in particular. The stuff about things like schools and teachers being fucked over again isn't catastrophising to my mind, just a depressing prediction of the future on the basis of how fucked up the past was.
 
Variant, shvariant.
The only variable about which we can be reasonably certain is vaccination.
With most of the world's 8 billion inhabitants unvaccinated and this disease able to mutate, (re)infect and spread asymptomatically this is a long way from over ...
 
There 1000% more doom on this forum than I ever encounter in speaking to people in real life. Not saying the doom is right or wrong, but it is definitely here.
On other fora, a fair proportion deny the existence of the virus - or even that viruses per se are a thing.
 
I was thinking particularly about Omicron, so the last couple of weeks or so. Certainly an initial outbreak of 'of fuck, here we go again, this will be as bad as before', but my impression is things have been more measured about hospitalisations in particular.
there's also been a fair amount of anger at the government that more restrictions haven't been brought in and a wide expectation that hospitals are about to be overwhelmed - which might still happen, but you can be sure it'll all be memory-holed if it doesn't.
 
On other fora, a fair proportion deny the existence off the virus - or even that viruses per se are a thing.
It probably isn't really a fair proportion... probably just 1 or 2 people posting a lot. I think it is the nature of forums that the most extreme perspectives are most noticeable, because that is the people who will bother to write a lot... whereas face to face people's opinions tend to get the edges rounded off... which on the whole is a good thing, for society to function at least.... tho it might mean that uncomfortable truths get missed.
 
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There 1000% more doom on this forum than I ever encounter in speaking to people in real life. Not saying the doom is right or wrong, but it is definitely here.
OTOH, more than a third of people round here haven't been vaccinated at all, most people in Boots just now weren't wearing masks and the pubs and restaurants are rammed. Can't help but feel there should be a bit more doom out there. 🤷‍♀️
 
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