Fored myself to watch the Javid press conference.
It was a combination of cheering and justifying the easing of restrictions, a vague review of the previous period including previous relaxing of measures last summer, and some emphasis on trying to get more people vaccinated going forwards. The vague review of the past obviously benefits from hindsight and being able to falsely tidy up the picture by focussing on the arrival of new variants, avoiding the need to draw attention to the ongoing nature of the Delta wave (right up till Omicron) and the question of whether we'd have needed to behave differently this winter in response to that existing variant, never mind Omicron. In some ways this is a repeat of a year earlier, where the arrival of Alpha(Kent) meant they could frame everything in those terms and avoid some tricky questions about whether the number of pre-Alpha infections were still a big problem right up till Alphas explosion. In other ways the description of the past and how they were able to ease restrictions for some months this summer was at least better framed than the sort of cruel merry-go-round we got at the time, where they pretended relaxations might be permanent rather than subject to heavy seasonal variation.
Javid remains very keen on learning to live with covid rhetoric, and comparing it to how we live with influenza. Including an emphasis on pharmaceutical measures rather than anything else. I think I've spoken about these things quite enough already, what he said was in line with my expectations and all my waffle about the traditional UK establishment response and their goals for living with covid in future. I do have to point out that even the likes of Javid are still pointing out that in many cases the formal laws are being replaced with guidance, so they still feel the need to recommend people wear masks in certain settings, and there will still be some kind of guidance about self-isolation even when that law is axed. I'd be more comfortable with the switch from laws to guidance if a much better job was done of communicating that, a tasks made worse by the attitudes of large swathes of the press whenever those times arrive, at least if the past and present is any guide.
The journalists asking questions were not convinced about the timing of the relaxation of measures, and certainly not about the dangled carrot of removing the self-isolation laws by the end of March or sooner. It seems likely that if the WHO is still recommending self-isolation when we remove the legal requirement for it, the press will draw some attention to the WHO stance. Unsurprisingly journalists also kept sticking questions about Johnson quitting into the mix.
Someone tried to ask whether the current level of daily reported deaths is at a level the government want us to live with, and Javid took the opportunity to start going on about 'incidental' deaths and how the proportions are larger with Omicron. Except he decided to use the quite large percentage of 'incidental' hospital cases in recent data, rather than any such comparable data on deaths (eg the ONS numbers I mentioned yesterday have had a much lower percentage of 'incidentals' than the hospital data he mentioned, although the ONS figures are also laggier). He also mentioned how the ONS would have more data on this soon, so unless he is confused about whats already available, I guess there is more analysis in store soon on that front. Analysis which will no doubt be used to make political points so long as it can be made to show what the 'incidental' fans want to see. Hopkins mentioned that if they see a greater divergence between deaths within 28 days of a positive test and ONS death certificate death figures in future, they will discuss the reasons for that, and so thats another potential opportunity for the 'incidental' stuff to be both fairly looked at, but also used for political purposes.
One thing I found noteworthy was that when talking about the future of living with covid and all the formal rules they expect to drop, he still spoke about the testing system in glowing terms. So perhaps they dont plan to axe that in the way some media has suggested in recent times. Perhaps they think they dont need to get rid of that in order to achieve their objectives, and that removing self-isolation laws instead will be enough to placate the right wing media etc who have called for an end to mass testing.
I havent got through the whole thing yet so I'll do another post if anything else of interest comes up.
