Coronavirus

[AndyWolves]

It's dangerous territory that I wouldn't want to even think about, it's completely against everything I believe in.

The way I see it is that we can

A) hope Omicron is mild enough that we don't need to do anything
B) vaccinate more people
C) restrictions / lockdown
D) accept excess deaths

Hopefully we get a) which means we don't need to do anything. But if not, it's b) everytime for me, so I guess the ends justify the means.

 

[WsWolf]

The way I see it is that we can

A) hope Omicron is mild enough that we don't need to do anything
B) vaccinate more people
C) restrictions / lockdown
D) accept excess deaths

Hopefully we get a) which means we don't need to do anything. But if not, it's b) everytime for me, so I guess the ends justify the means.

All of the data from South Africa suggests it's mild, I don't trust those sage projections they basically predict the worst case scenario. They've been miles out every time, there's a bloke called Dr Phillip Thomas who's been really accurate with modelling so far and he's saying there's no need for any more restrictions.

200k of the unvaccinated are nhs workers, not sure that sacking them helps prevent the NHS being overwhelmed so it's likely another lockdown would be needed because those staff can't just be replaced.

D) is likely regardless due to the complete disarray our health system was in before this shit came around.

If this is a mild strain, it should really push the country toward herd immunity and signal the end of the pandemic, surely with how transmissible it is, it will likely run out of people to infect before long and die out. obviously I'm not an expert but that seems common sense.

 

[Throbber3]

Would this apply smokers and people who are morbidly obese? All create unnecessary stress on the NHS and are all choices. It's against the core principles of the NHS to do what you suggest.

Its a fair point. But neither create the numbers of a pandemic. If they did the same questions would be asked.

Covid , Delta Variant now Omicron. Do we seriously think this is going away anytime soon? I dont. It is something we must learn to live with and to avoid getting hospitalized the data suggests that you get a jab.

 

[WsWolf]

Its a fair point. But neither create the numbers of a pandemic. If they did the same questions would be asked.

Covid , Delta Variant now Omicron. Do we seriously think this is going away anytime soon? I dont. It is something we must learn to live with and to avoid getting hospitalized the data suggests that you get a jab.

I agree we need to live with it but people make their own choices, is someone who's 30 odd stone, 5 foot tall, smokes and vaccinated any less at risk than someone who's in good shape, doesn't drink or smoke and not vaccinated, it's too nuanced to say we need mandatory vaccination when there are so many contributing factors.

 

[Sniffer]

No crowds at sporting events in Scotland or Wales from 26th December. Will England follow suit?

 

[The Bear]

I think they'll let everyone have the boxing day games then do it from 27th.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Its a fair point. But neither create the numbers of a pandemic. If they did the same questions would be asked.

I don't know the figures, but i'd imagine more people have died from alcohol/smoking/obesity related illnesses over the last couple of years than they have from Covid? I think smoking alone is about 80k a year?

The thing is, right now, the vast majority of adults in this country have antibodies to fight Covid, that alone shouldn't mean we need to go down the lockdown route, it was fully understandable when we didn't have a vaccine and didn't know what Covid would bring, but now? No.

The Sage modelling comes from the worst possible scenarios, and has been consistently wrong over and over again.

 

[sycophantia]

As ever, it's all about trying to keep numbers down low enough to stop hospitals getting overwhelmed. Poor bastards are already struggling to keep pace, got a couple of relatives working in the NHS and both saying all depts are on their knees.
Personally I don't think Johnson will bring in any further restrictions until covid hospitalizations are much higher. Obviously that will be too late but at this stage we just don't know how bad it will be and Johnson is scared of the further right-wing of his party stamping on him about our rights

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I don't know the figures, but i'd imagine more people have died from alcohol/smoking/obesity related illnesses over the last couple of years than they have from Covid? I think smoking alone is about 80k a year?

The thing is, right now, the vast majority of adults in this country have antibodies to fight Covid, that alone shouldn't mean we need to go down the lockdown route, it was fully understandable when we didn't have a vaccine and didn't know what Covid would bring, but now? No.

The Sage modelling comes from the worst possible scenarios, and has been consistently wrong over and over again.

Would imagine the number of unvaccinated people is the critical figure for avoiding lockdown, as long as their number is greater than the capacity of the NHS then any large outbreak has potential to overwhelm the service regardless of the number that is vaccinated.

I think you've maybe missed the point on your last statement too, if Sage models worst case scenario then they're almost guaranteed to be wrong aren't they? What government is going to look at those predictions and do literally nothing to stem the tide? The only way their prediction would come to fruition is to let the virus run wild whilst everyone lives their normal lives, we haven't done that and so avoided the worst case scenario, that doesn't make Sage wrong as such and it just means we've catched course to avoid it.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

The ethical question is definitely interesting. Our Government won't permit assisted suicide of terminally ill patients but isn't prepared to insist on people take a vaccine that will undoubtedly reduce deaths both directly and indirectly from bed-blocking.

I agree with TT that the best way is effectively do it by stealth. Stop unvaccinated people going into shops, pubs, restaurants, working in the public sector, playing sport (including professionally), going to gyms. If everyone was vaccinated the risk to the NHS would reduce massively and then those who are vaxed can get on with life taking precautions as they see fit.

On a radio phone-in yesterday a healthcare worker emailed in to say NHS staff are getting increasingly less tolerant of unvaxed patients, they are still giving care but thery've losrt any sympathy when if and when they die. I can understand that and would also question whether anyone prepared to refuse the vaccine as they don't want anything foreign being introduced into their body feels the same about drugs used to treat Covid? If they do, no point going to hospital, if they don't they're just utter twats.

 

[Dire Wolf]

All of the data from South Africa suggests it's mild, I don't trust those sage projections they basically predict the worst case scenario. They've been miles out every time, there's a bloke called Dr Phillip Thomas who's been really accurate with modelling so far and he's saying there's no need for any more restrictions.

200k of the unvaccinated are nhs workers, not sure that sacking them helps prevent the NHS being overwhelmed so it's likely another lockdown would be needed because those staff can't just be replaced.

D) is likely regardless due to the complete disarray our health system was in before this shit came around.

If this is a mild strain, it should really push the country toward herd immunity and signal the end of the pandemic, surely with how transmissible it is, it will likely run out of people to infect before long and die out. obviously I'm not an expert but that seems common sense.

Except there doesn't appear such a thing as herd immunity because the virus keeps mutating in a way that bypasses previous immunity. Some people have had it 3 times and while it may currently be that the 2nd and 3rd times have been milder it does not mean that will always be the case as the virus continues to evolve, does it? Maybe it does, I don't know, I'm certainly not an epidemiologist!

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Would imagine the number of unvaccinated people is the critical figure for avoiding lockdown, as long as their number is greater than the capacity of the NHS then any large outbreak has potential to overwhelm the service regardless of the number that is vaccinated.

I think you've maybe missed the point on your last statement too, if Sage models worst case scenario then they're almost guaranteed to be wrong aren't they? What government is going to look at those predictions and do literally nothing to stem the tide? The only way their prediction would come to fruition is to let the virus run wild whilst everyone lives their normal lives, we haven't done that and so avoided the worst case scenario, that doesn't make Sage wrong as such and it just means we've catched course to avoid it.

Well we have done that, there has been minimal restrictions over the last 5 months, Sage still have been vastly wrong.




Surely the government should base their decisions based on various possible scenarios, rather than acting upon the worst possible?

 

[WolfMan]

Would imagine the number of unvaccinated people is the critical figure for avoiding lockdown, as long as their number is greater than the capacity of the NHS then any large outbreak has potential to overwhelm the service regardless of the number that is vaccinated.

I think you've maybe missed the point on your last statement too, if Sage models worst case scenario then they're almost guaranteed to be wrong aren't they? What government is going to look at those predictions and do literally nothing to stem the tide? The only way their prediction would come to fruition is to let the virus run wild whilst everyone lives their normal lives, we haven't done that and so avoided the worst case scenario, that doesn't make Sage wrong as such and it just means we've catched course to avoid it.

The problem with the sage models is they are models, not predictions.

The media then picks up on them, amplifies the worst outcomes and then it creates a loop of pressure on the Govt to do something. Its not logical at all.

Fraser Nelson is a prick but read this Article - it comes from the horses mouth.

My Twitter conversation with the chairman of the Sage Covid modelling committee

The latest Sage papers have been published, envisaging anything from 200 to 6,000 deaths a day from Omicron depending on how many more restrictions we’ll get — up to and very much including another lockdown. Earlier today I had an unexpected chance to ask questions of Graham Medley, the chair of...

www.spectator.co.uk

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

Smoking is permitted by society (albeit not encouraged) it has been taxed heavily for decades and contributes to the government coffers. Obesity is closely liked to social economic issues and not just eating too much, the government is starting to tax this and treat it as a health issue that requires societal change to help.

Vaccines are rolled out to prevent a disease which has crippled society and the economy for the past 2 years, those who are refusing to be a responsible citizen are actively harming those that do. Its a different question and easily distinguishable, stop treating the un-vaxxed, there is a limit to idiotic behaviour.

I had to take my child up to the hospital yesterday instead of the local GP, I would dread to think what impact this would have on my wifes treatment a few years ago, I do know that her check over was undertaken over the phone the other week, this is far from ideal.

I feel sympathy for all those that have had treatment delayed because of the hospitals struggling to deal with Covid cases that could and should have been prevented

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Smoking is permitted by society (albeit not encouraged) it has been taxed heavily for decades and contributes to the government coffers. Obesity is closely liked to social economic issues and not just eating too much, the government is starting to tax this and treat it as a health issue that requires societal change to help.

Playing devil's advocate, I query why we consider it ok to permit smoking, obesity and drinking despite knowing that it makes people ill and kills vast amounts of people every year, yet we are willing to lockdown society and be ok with the numerous side effects of that?

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Playing devil's advocate, I query why we consider it ok to permit smoking, obesity and drinking despite knowing that it makes people ill and kills vast amounts of people every year, yet we are willing to lockdown society and be ok with the numerous side effects of that?

The situations are different. The NHS can cope (just about) with a steady stream of patients from with a variety of self-inflicted ailments. In a pandemic situation it cannot cope as the numbers needing treatment are much higher. If we had a health service that had oodles of spare capacity unvaccinated patients wouldn’t be a problem but we don’t. What we have is a means of massively reducing the number of Covid patients requiring hospital admission so we should insist they use it.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

I don't see how they are different, if we banned smoking, and were less tolerant of those that choose to make themselves morbidly obese then the NHS would have "oodles" of spare capacity.

Ultimately, we should treat both/all situations the same.

If people feel it's right to not treat people who choose not to be vaccinated, then they should feel it's right to not treat people who smoke too.

 

[WolfMan]

Playing devil's advocate, I query why we consider it ok to permit smoking, obesity and drinking despite knowing that it makes people ill and kills vast amounts of people every year, yet we are willing to lockdown society and be ok with the numerous side effects of that?

People do all sorts of mental cartwheels to draw a distinction between unvaccinated people on one hand and smokers, obesity etc on the other.

The ironic thing is one of the main risk factors in actually dying from covid is being obese - if we weren't so overweight as a country, we'd probably have been able to cope alot better with covid. But no one seriously believes taking fat people's freedom away is a sane thing to do. The difference is that everyone is either fat themselves or knows/loves someone who is, it's harder to call for their freedom to be taken away.

 

[Throbber3]

If true this is new levels of hypocrisy.


‘Unvaccinated’ Marjorie Taylor Greene owns stock in three vaccine companies (msn.com)

 

[WolfMan]

The situations are different. The NHS can cope (just about) with a steady stream of patients from with a variety of self-inflicted ailments. In a pandemic situation it cannot cope as the numbers needing treatment are much higher. If we had a health service that had oodles of spare capacity unvaccinated patients wouldn’t be a problem but we don’t. What we have is a means of massively reducing the number of Covid patients requiring hospital admission so we should insist they use it.

The NHS has been on the brink of collapsing every year since I can remember. It probably has actually collapsed a number of times in the levels of treatment it has been able to provide in bad winters, but no one was that bothered.

Look at this from 2015. There are literally hundreds of articles of a similar ilk before Covid ever existed

NHS on brink of collapse, warns former health minister

Norman Lamb predicts healthcare system will crash in two years and says Tories are being dishonest over crisis

www.theguardian.com

The answer isn't to take anyone's freedom away, it's get the NHS to a position where it's not constantly on the verge of collapse.