Lockdown’s Last Lingerings - (Covid since L2 ended)

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

It's really time to start seriously re-configuring society to meet the new world. The Lancet spelt it out in October:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30151-8/fulltext

 

According to this, and since they are the experts I have to believe them, all these measures are here to stay forever. That means it's time to accept that all hospitality venues are shut and will never re-open. With them go all theatres, cinemas and other venues that rely on an audience. It's probably reasonable to suggest that non-essential shops will cease to exist over a relatively short period of time. Pretty much, if you enjoy it, it's gone.

 

Initially, this will mean massive unemployment. I've read predictions of over 8 million, and with no jobs, that's going to be around a long while. Government will have massively reduced income, almost certainly to the detriment of those relying on a state pension.

 

Long term, and I think we are talking decades, society will evolve. We'll stop having any contact with other people, existing entirely online. No-one will go shopping in person, and it's likely that all deliveries will be automated. How people are supposed to meet and procreate is a mystery, but a huge reduction in population isn't a bad thing for the planet.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

Interesting though the views expressed in the Lancet are, I am not sure how relevant it is to use a piece that was prepared before any results from any vaccines were available.

 

The results from at least 2 vaccines appear (and I stress appear) to be well beyond the wildest expectations back in October when the piece was published and probably August when it was written.

 

If (and it remains and if) the in field use of these vaccines is close to the trial results, we will be a lot closer to scenario 1 than either of the other two scenarios.

 

But at this stage we don't know.  However I see little benefit in telling the world that life as we know it is over when frankly we don't know.

[Phil Parker]

23 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Will life change forever.. if it does it will be the first time a virus has. Some small changes will persist, and not before time.. cleanliness, temperature checking and sympton checking will probably be on going.

 Plus masks, social distancing and the end of all mass-participation events - according to science anyway. There will always be a new strain of virus, 1400+ of this one so far I understand, and a new reason we need to be protected.

 

24 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

make no mistake this government is about damage control, not protection. The New York Post summed up the government response back in March..”the UK Government moves to protect its economy but not its people”.

 

Poverty has been proven to change people's health for the worse and the decimation of all retail will affect the poorest and youngest in society first. Add in to this the NHS giving up on everything but Covid for months leading many cancer scientists to suggest that missed cancer diagnoses will be the next "wave". There's also the little matter of mental health, admittedly not something many in the UK care about. Suicide and self-harm rate increase around Christmas. With many lonely people out there who can't have any contact with anyone else, that's not going to get any better. Although the government may well point out that dead people don't transmit Covid.

 

Bluntly, I wish I shared your optimism.

[adb968008]

perspectives..

 

Germs are everywhere. Everything you touch has some contamination of something on it. Covid is going to be just another contamination.

Having a vaccine isnt going to make your hands free of Covid, so you will spread it, ingest it, exhale it, together with Ecoli, Campylobacter, Salmonella etc.

 

Its your bodies resistance to it thats important. Thats what the vaccine, or herd immunity will do. But yes it will be present forever, it will just become less relevent, and as such human life will return to a close to normality.

 

Masks will fade as the risk fades, but many will continue to wear them, just as many wear gloves when handling raw chicken.

Covid is a shock to the western system, because we forgot about the 1918 pandemic, where as those in China are a bit more attuned to it, having seen Bird Flu, Sars etc more recently, hence reactions were stronger and faster... you can bet that reaction will be faster in Europe when the next virus comes... thats something that will change.

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by adb968008

[Phil Parker]

7 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

But at this stage we don't know.  However I see little benefit in telling the world that life as we know it is over when frankly we don't know.

 

Pretending something isn't happening won't make it go away. The government has tried that already.

 

One thing that has both fascinated and impressed me through this is the way organisations have evolved to ameliorate the effects of any rules imposed on them. Supermarkets have screens in front of the staff, so do hairdressers. Pubs have changed the way they work and brought in new cleaning regimes.

 

We have flip-flopped between unlocked and locked and this is doing more harm than simply picking a state and letting people adjust to it. We can adapt, we just need to know what we are adapting to.

 

10 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Interesting though the views expressed in the Lancet are, I am not sure how relevant it is to use a piece that was prepared before any results from any vaccines were available.

 

My reading of the piece is that it's based on general understanding of how vaccines work, not the specifics of the current crop. As it supplies 3 scenarios based on different results, it's reasonable to assume they have covered all the options. I'd be very happy for someone with the appropriate qualifications to debunk the piece, but so far, no-one has.

[Phil Parker]

2 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Germs are everywhere. Everything you touch has some contamination of something on it. Covid is going to be just another contamination.

Having a vaccine isnt going to make your hands free of Covid, so you will spread it, ingest it, exhale it, together with Ecoli, Campylobacter, Salmonella etc.

 

Its your bodies resistance to it thats important. Thats what the vaccine, or herd immunity will do. But yes it will be present forever, it will just become less relevent, and as such human life will return to a close to normality.

 

That is true - but there will always be a new strain we can be protected from. This week has shown that. There have been many new strains (Nature lists 1400+ I understand) but apparently none of these mattered until lockdown was required, then a handy one was found.

 

We are told that infections are higher than they were in the spring, yet the only testing back then was in hospital, so how do we know how many infections there were? If we don't know that, how can we know there are more now?

[adb968008]

3 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

That is true - but there will always be a new strain we can be protected from. This week has shown that. There have been many new strains (Nature lists 1400+ I understand) but apparently none of these mattered until lockdown was required, then a handy one was found.

 

We are told that infections are higher than they were in the spring, yet the only testing back then was in hospital, so how do we know how many infections there were? If we don't know that, how can we know there are more now?

What we are told, is often to suit a narrative or justify a course of action.

Political spin has no boundaries.

 

London last week was partying like covid doesn't exist. That imho is why the SE has seen a growth. They go home, pass it to kids who take it to school in new years.

It happens every christmas.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by adb968008

[Phil Parker]

1 minute ago, adb968008 said:

London last week was partying like covid doesn't exist. That imho is why the SE has seen a growth. They go home, pass it to kids who take it to school.

It happens every christmas.

 

And it will happen next year, and the year after. You see how restrictions not being lifted comes about?

[adb968008]

16 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

And it will happen next year, and the year after. You see how restrictions not being lifted comes about?

But once society is protected, the restrictions become less relevant.

Flu kills many every year, so will Covid, they will co exist.

 

People learned from Flu in 1918, but masks wasn't one of those lessons that stayed, yet could save every year thousands of people from Flu.. indeed Flu is down this year because of peoples Covid response measures, so keeping masks would be a societal benefit for 2 viruses.., but if people abandoned masks for flu, so they will for covid once the threat recedes.

 

its just right now that risk is both very great and out of control (despite what they say) as this is something new. covid is only managed by societal behaviour, until enough people are given a vaccine / or infection immunity that allows them to live with it... at that point.. you can live with it.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by adb968008

[great central]

Well having read and, I think, understood what Phil is getting at, I'm seriously wondering if I want to continue trying to keep myself healthy. I'm not doing too bad I don't think having had a heart attack nearly 11 years ago now, but if that is to be the so called new normal with other things going on in my life I'm really not sure I want to bother.

I had a couple of hours in Lincoln today and took the opportunity to walk up Steep Hill as part of a 3 mile or so walk.

 

From my perspective, and there will be many people upset by this, I think we have to accept the inevitability that people will die from such things.

To my mind we are merely another species of animal, we hear that a certain species has contracted a particular illness and are dying. We try to mitigate the damage but ultimately accept the fact. I saw a dead swan a couple of days ago, duly reported to DEFRA, that may have been a victim of bird flu.

If one of a flock of farm birds, turkey's are the current hot topic, catches bird flu the whole flock is culled to try to prevent it spreading further. I understand all farm birds have to be kept indoors currently?

Whilst not suggesting people be 'culled' I think a degree of objectivity needs to be applied, the earth is over populated and humans are destroying the very planet by their actions, maybe viruses are a control medium? 

Not a pleasant viewpoint, I'm sure many people will disagree with me, and if I've caused upset or offence I apologise.

Now do I get back on the exercise bike or forget it, restart smoking which I quit 38 years ago, and make myself a ruddy great fry up?

[Dagworth]

3 minutes ago, great central said:

maybe viruses are a control medium? 

Now that wars don’t tend to take such large parts of the breeding population then some other control mechanism will take over. 
 

Andi

[Phil Parker]

4 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

But once society is protected, the restrictions become less relevant.

Flu kills many every year, so will Covid, they will co exist.

 

There have been medics arguing that we should also consider lockdowns to deal with flu. Many have argued for "zero covid" which both you and I don't think is possible. Technically it is if you lock everyone away for a year with ALL shops shut, rations delivered by the army and no-one allowed on the street for any reason, then shut the borders forever, but so far that message seems to have been ignored.

 

I've always believed that if you invented the car today, and suggested they could be kept apart by painting a line down the centre of the road, you'd be laughed at. 

 

Covid is new so everyone scrabbles around looking for new ways to deal with it. That we don't have anything more sophisticated than shutting everyone indoors after many months is odd but we have to let that pass. However, "Flu kills thousands, let's keep locking down" is doubtless a message that will be considered in a few months along with "zero Covid" and "Oh look ANOTHER new strain.". If you look at the popular press, you'd believe that no-one ever died apart from Covid and that's something we can "cure". The search for that "cure" hands people power.

[woodenhead]

7 minutes ago, great central said:

the earth is over populated and humans are destroying the very planet by their actions, maybe viruses are a control medium? 

Not a pleasant viewpoint, I'm sure many people will disagree with me, and if I've caused upset or offence I apologise.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Dagworth said:

Now that wars don’t tend to take such large parts of the breeding population then some other control mechanism will take over. 
 

Andi

May not be pleasant but sometimes it has to be said, we are after all just animals, we're at the top of the chain but we treat the whole environment around us like a parasite.

 

Without large conflicts as Dagworth points out, starvation and viruses are the only things that can wipe out large numbers of us.

 

Mother nature always finds a way to control numbers and you ignore that at your peril.

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

There have been medics arguing that we should also consider lockdowns to deal with flu. Many have argued for "zero covid" which both you and I don't think is possible. Technically it is if you lock everyone away for a year with ALL shops shut, rations delivered by the army and no-one allowed on the street for any reason, then shut the borders forever, but so far that message seems to have been ignored.

Even if we did, what happens when the next corona virus leaps from animal to human.

[Andy Hayter]

46 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

 

My reading of the piece is that it's based on general understanding of how vaccines work, not the specifics of the current crop. As it supplies 3 scenarios based on different results, it's reasonable to assume they have covered all the options. I'd be very happy for someone with the appropriate qualifications to debunk the piece, but so far, no-one has.

 

I agree Phil, but look how scenario 1 is essentially dismissed to the point where it essentially is not considered.  Scenario 1 does allow life to return to a near match of the normality of the past and does not led to the near complete loss of social interaction that you have emphasised. 

 

As such it is a bit like the HIV warnings of the 1980s that were likely to lead to the end of procreation since sexual contact was going to kill you.  

[adb968008]

I do think zero covid was and is possible.

We eradicated Rabies from animals, Australia, New Zealand, China any number of caribbean and pacific islands are covid free.

I think we were very close to it in August, had mass testing been available, it could have been.

How is it achieveable, the same way as you win a war.. house to house, street by street in a rolling wave. But for that you need discipline, a test result thats immediate and secure borders, internal and external to test those passing  in and out of those areas.

Right now Covid is out of control, the numbers too high, it just costs too much money and not enough tools are available to implement today.

 

We live in a global world, so as long as borders are open, someone somewhere will always have it, pass it on. Some countries took the closed border approach, but we value our economy more than its people.
 

So next best option is to nullify its affects, and pay for that freedom in lives, until the government has the ability to have a war like eradication approach, which inevitably will be via proof of health visa’s and border testing etc, which will someday come.

Edited December 19, 2020 by adb968008

[APOLLO]

Rations delivered by the Army ? WHAT army, 78000 + 30000 Dad's army, Not many Police left these days either, 153000.

 

And who makes "the rations" ?. Who keeps the lights on, gas water and sewage flowing, etc. MORE people will die soon of un diagnosed causes (Cancer etc) than Covid soon, perhaps we have already passed that point. Can't even see your Dentist since March. UTTER MADNESS

 

There WILL be mass riots if TOTAL LOCKDOWN AT HOME is even mentioned. Already kicked off in London this evening.

 

The ONLY way out of this is

 

1. Mass immunisation ASAP

2. Protect the vulnerable, old etc - Should have started in March

3. Open everything up - ASAP, or by spring there will be nothing left to open. << THIS is the most important point, or we are back to the dark ages, which is what some in the higher echelons want. 

 

The great British public will only take so much - and we (including myself)  are rapidly nearing the limit.

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

[Phil Parker]

6 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

We eradicated Rabies from animals

 

No we haven't. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/fourth-travel-related-rabies-case-reported-eu-2019

 

7 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Australia, New Zealand, China any number of caribbean and pacific islands are covid free.

 

19 Dec - 34 Covid cases in Australia. 12 Dec - 4 in New Zealand. 18 Dec - 17 case in China.

 

Suppression is not eradication.

[woodenhead]

5 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I do think zero covid was and is possible.

We eradicated Rabies from animals, Australia, New Zealand, China any number of caribbean and pacific islands are covid free.

I think we were very close to it in August, had mass testing been available, it could have been.

 

Rabies hasn't been eradicated, it has been controlled and it doesn't transmit through the air but through saliva just before the host dies.  It can be prevented through vaccination and the main route to human infection is through dogs, so vaccinating dogs was the chosen route to control the infection and stop it killing humans, but you cannot vaccinate every animal so it is still prevalent throughout the world we're just less likely to get bitten by other rabid animals than dogs.

 

Australia & New Zealand have the Pacific ocean to help keep themselves isolated, as do many other islands in that region, in fact any island that isn't a staging for people fleeing their home country.  I would be doubtful that China has shed itself of Covid, if it can hide the abuse of it's own citizens by the Government then it can hide illness just as effectively.

[Dagworth]

2 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Can't even see your Dentist since March. UTTER MADNESS

My NHS dentist has been open to see patients since the middle of the summer. 
 

Andi

[woodenhead]

21 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

I agree Phil, but look how scenario 1 is essentially dismissed to the point where it essentially is not considered.  Scenario 1 does allow life to return to a near match of the normality of the past and does not led to the near complete loss of social interaction that you have emphasised. 

 

As such it is a bit like the HIV warnings of the 1980s that were likely to lead to the end of procreation since sexual contact was going to kill you.  

Scenario 1 will only be known in 12 months once sufficient people have been vaccinated and it is understood that not only can they not get COVID but also that they are not a vector to infecting other people.  Given they are not even sure that the current vaccines will do more than lessen symptoms and potentially still allow infection of others I think getting to Scenario 1 is a long way off.

 

And to use HIV as a reference, it did have an impact on sexual relations, we recognised that condoms did more than just stop babies being produced - but of course the Catholic church did not like that and actually worked against heath organisations in Africa.  However, to bring it back to Covid, we still don't have a definite fully effective vaccine to HIV so assuming we can beat a virus like COVID in 12 months is probably a big stretch.

[andyman7]

Reading through the last couple of pages of posts, is no-one struck by the insanity of even the notion that all socialising, human contact and interaction should be forever and permanently changed by a disease that, in historical terms, barely registers on the deadly, is far and away only really risky to those who have already reached an age beyond the life expectancy of humanity through most of history, and can be mitigated with vaccines?

It's one thing to restrict life for a few months to better understand what is going on, but this response in any permanent form would be so disproportionate as to be madness. 

Edited December 19, 2020 by andyman7

[simontaylor484]

I wouldn't believe a word thar comes our of China regarding Covid they hid it at first. Silencing Drs see the Bbc reports 

Bubonic plague still exists but it doesnt kill the millions it did.

Same with many other big killer virus.

 

There was a philosopher called Malthus who stated that these events came as the world became over populated it was pn A level geography syllabus.

 

The fact of life is of course Death life expectancy has increased greatly since 1900 the fact is people are aging but the human body is not designed to reach the ages we attain

[simontaylor484]

14 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

Reading through the last couple of pages of posts, is no-one struck by the insanity of even the notion that all socialising, human contact and interaction should be forever and permanently changed by a disease that, in historical terms, barely registers on the deadly, is far and away only really risky to those who have already reached an age beyond the life expectancy of humanity through most of history, and can be mitigated with vaccines?

It's one thing to restrict life for a few months to better understand what is going on, but this response in any permanent form would be so disproportionate as to be madness. 

I cant agree with this more 

Lool at the barely used Nightingale Hospitals the extra mortuary spaces not used. 

 

This is all a bonus of course.

 

The percentage of deaths from confirmed cases is mercifully small

[woodenhead]

26 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

Reading through the last couple of pages of posts, is no-one struck by the insanity of even the notion that all socialising, human contact and interaction should be forever and permanently changed by a disease that, in historical terms, barely registers on the deadly, is far and away only really risky to those who have already reached an age beyond the life expectancy of humanity through most of history, and can be mitigated with vaccines?

It's one thing to restrict life for a few months to better understand what is going on, but this response in any permanent form would be so disproportionate as to be madness. 

No I think we all understand the absurb nature of the time we live in, the only reason we're all distancing, isolating and not going off our heads is on the understanding with the Government that this is all temporary, for 12-18 months say.  Any attempt beyond 12-18 months to keep this level of isolation going with no obvious way out will be met with complete rejection by the general public.

[Nearholmer]

3 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

all these measures are here to stay forever

 

Not necessarily.

 

Even under the scenario painted in that Lancet article other courses of  action or inaction could emerge: heavy segregation of society into the hardly-vulnerable and the significantly vulnerable, with the latter having to live very circumscribed lives; or, societal acceptance that, until either the virus "winds down" to a less severe form, or we evolve to better resist it, "three score years and ten" really is the allotted span for a lot of us.

 

I think "the trouble" with the Lancet in this context is that it is by and for Doctors, who, thankfully, want to protect us all from illness, employing any measure necessary to do that. Realpolitik brings in a lot more considerations than protecting us from illness.