Tamura Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Dutch PM apologises for easing of COVID-19 curbs as cases soar So this happens minutes before Johnson announces the lifting of pretty much every single restriction, making the important ones "if you feel like doing it" type advice instead. Still, at least we know to make the most of the next couple of weeks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 This may be a stupid question, but why are we still obsessing over cases when they don't seem to be linked with hospitalisations and deaths anymore? That article about the Dutch PM even says at the end that "The spike in infections has not led to a notable increase of COVID-19 hospital admissions." I know it then says that this status "could be" threatened by the rising cases, but there doesn't seem to be any real evidence for that happening, does there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamura Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 (edited) Basically the more cases there are, the more chance of new variants that are super-infectious and/or resistant to existing vaccines. You also have to worry about whether drastically increased infections will cause other countries to introduce travel bans, which isn't good news for anyone trying to plan for overseas holidays. Given how badly the Tories have managed this from the outset, you'd think by now we'd be following the examples of countries that have been successful in dealing with the pandemic. Edited July 12, 2021 by Tamura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
organizedkaos Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 24 minutes ago, David said: This may be a stupid question, but why are we still obsessing over cases when they don't seem to be linked with hospitalisations and deaths anymore? That article about the Dutch PM even says at the end that "The spike in infections has not led to a notable increase of COVID-19 hospital admissions." I know it then says that this status "could be" threatened by the rising cases, but there doesn't seem to be any real evidence for that happening, does there? “Most modelled scenarios have peaks lower than January 2021. However, under more pessimistic assumptions, some scenarios show a resurgence of that scale or larger. Even if lower than previous peaks, the number of admissions may become challenging for the NHS,” minutes of a Sage meeting note, adding that contingency plans should be put in place for how to respond if hospital admissions approach such levels. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/12/boris-johnson-urges-covid-caution-amid-warnings-of-1000-hospitalisations-a-day Seems like still plausible there'll be enough hospitalisations to have significant negative effect on NHS and it's workers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuffAndThings Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 (edited) Also, the results aren't just death, hospital or being healthy. The ONS here says that almost 1 million people, or 1.5% of the population are reporting that they have long covid, of those almost 400,000 said they had (or thought they had) covid over a year ago. More cases could lead to more long covid. Edited July 12, 2021 by StuffAndThings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 Yes, but at some point we need to look at how we're going to live with this virus as part of our lives. It's more than likely never really going away. There are always going to be unfortunate circumstances where people die from it, or suffer from long Covid, but people die from any number of ailments. How many cancers haven't been caught because of all of this? Or other serious diseases? I don't think the answer is shutting everything down out of fear of what could happen. At some point, when people aren't seeing loved ones, aren't socialising with friends, aren't going to work and so forth you need to ask what the point is? Is sitting indoors shitting yourself that someone might sneeze near you really living? I'm hoping we see sense and a more measured approach to this thing over the next year or so. Because the truth is, the real fallout from this is yet to be felt really. We're racking up a hell of a debt of late, and I think we all know who'll be expected to pay that back. It won't be the people at the top of the pile, that's for sure. We'll be hearing about austerity before long, wrapped up in a nice little "for the greater good" package. If I was a betting man, I'd wager that we'll see more people (and far more children) die from the resulting poverty through job losses and suchlike within the next five years than we will the actual virus itself. As of yesterday, according to the WHO, we've seen 186.5 million confirmed cases, and a shade over 4 million deaths worldwide. Less than the population of Scotland. Bearing in mind that most of those numbers occurred before the vaccine, and many before we even knew what we were really dealing with. I agreed whole-heartedly with the lockdown initially. We had to get a grip on this, curb the numbers, let the powers that be figure out what they were dealing with, and allow time for a vaccine to be created. We now know what we're dealing with, the deaths and even hospitalisations are way down, the vaccine is doing its job, and yet we're seeing some governments still acting as though it's November 2020. Well, they're asking us to act as if it's November 2020. They're acting as if it's business as usual. Some would claim they never really changed how they acted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
organizedkaos Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 (edited) From speaking to friends and family working in hosptials the NHS being overrun with cases is not something that can be lived with. We'd see a marked drop in what healthcare can achieve along with an incredible toll on those who work in it It may be once vaccinations are widespread enough this doesn't happen and then yeah, there's potential for discussion about what amount of the virus can work in society (flu does off a fair few people every year, apparently peak flu season in a hospital is similar to peak covid). Also I realise that this is modelling of hospitalisations not actuality that we're discussing, I'd like to be wrong on this very much... As others have pointed out, risk of new strains along with not really understanding long covid and how widespread it may be yet are also factors that need to be considered. Purely focussing on deaths in relation to all the negative aspects of lockdown / restrictions does make the argument seem like we have to live with a certain amount of damage from this. That's why that narrative is being pushed in certain circles. However it's not necessarily a fair representation of the relative costs.. Edited July 13, 2021 by organizedkaos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 1 minute ago, organizedkaos said: From speaking to friends and family working in hosptials the NHS being overrun with cases is not something that can be lived with. We'd see a marked drop in what healthcare can achieve along with an incredible toll on those who work in it And if we come close to reaching that point we can deal with it as needed. But we simply cannot live our lives in fear of the worst case scenario. By doing that we're only opening ourselves up to serious problems in other areas. As I said, this virus isn't going away. It's always going to be there, but we now have a vaccine that has broken that link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sphinx Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 We're not that far off everyone in the UK (or those who aren't anti-vaxxers) having the double dose. I feel like we'd be better off waiting for that before easing restrictions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamura Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 (edited) I don't have a problem with attempting to try and return to some degree of normaility, but I do have a problem with the way Johnson is doing it. They've said all along they are going to be guided by science, so exactly which scientists are saying "wear a mask if you feel like it" is the best idea right now? I mentioned the Netherlands earlier on, the joke right now is that they've flattened the curve so much it's a vertical line. I can imagine the UK's line doing something similar over the next few weeks. That graph comes from this FT article that tells us new cases have risen 15-fold since the beginning of May, a figure that's expected to rise from 30,000 to 100,000 due to the dropping of all legal restrictions. The same article says hospital admissions are expected to rise to 1,000-2,000 per day, with 4,000 not being ruled out. Only at the weekend Sky News reported hospital admissions were up 55.9% (2,872 new admissions) compared to the previous week, so I'm not sure where this idea that the vaccine has broken the link between cases and hospitalisations has come from. So taking all this into account, the rather obvious question has to be "Is this really a good time to remove the legal requirement for people to wear masks in certain situations?" Edited July 13, 2021 by Tamura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted July 13, 2021 Moderators Share Posted July 13, 2021 On 3/16/2020 at 10:25 AM, David said: I guess we'll see how it plays out, but while we're still sitting on a 92% recovery rate, which includes the Chinese cases dating back to when they weren't sure how to really deal with it, I'm not quite ready to go into lockdown and start prepping the sandwich board and the bell. 1 hour ago, David said: I agreed whole-heartedly with the lockdown initially. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator Frankie Crisp Posted July 13, 2021 Awards Moderator Share Posted July 13, 2021 Big day for old Frankie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted July 13, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted July 13, 2021 I know it's not news, but this thing sucks. Been a week since I was diagnosed, and it's been up and down since then - I thought I was recovering, then spiked with a 103 temperature yesterday and just feeling absolutely lousy. Scared the hell out of my girlfriend too. Feeling a bit better today, thankfully, but the whole thing has really knocked me for six. This is with one full vaccination and the other either on the day I contracted it or just after. Annoyingly, I've been generally careful too - masked up, social distancing, booking carefully for places when I'm seeing people, etc. But you can't control other people. My guess is that I picked it up on the train back from my vaccination, because a bunch of people weren't wearing masks. I'm just hoping that I'm dealing with the worst of it now and it doesn't develop into long-Covid. Fully coming out of restrictions at the moment is lunacy. It's begging for more variations. And we're mainly doing it to make sure property owners can make more money from office rents, and so people who are bored with it all can pretend it's over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted July 13, 2021 Moderators Share Posted July 13, 2021 I know this is the wrong thing to take away from that post, but why the hell are you using Fahrenheit? Sorry it's going so shit though. Hope you feel better soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted July 13, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted July 13, 2021 10 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said: I know this is the wrong thing to take away from that post, but why the hell are you using Fahrenheit? Sorry it's going so shit though. Hope you feel better soon. Because that's what my digital thermometer uses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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