What’s the need to extend the lockdown when the NHS is currently a million miles from being overwhelmed? We’re at just 7 covid related deaths a day in England, I’m not sure how that justifies continued emergency restrictions unless anyone would care to explain.
The problem is 'Delta', like how Kent/Alpha turned everything on it's head last Autumn, Delta, which thankfully no more deadly (it seems anyway) is more contagious again.
The University if Warwick completed a study, it was very 'worst case' but it said that if they drop all restrictions on the 21st of June, 3-4 weeks later they could see 20k Hospital admissions a day, that's an unimaginable disaster for the NHS. 4 times higher than the peak in January.
It's always the 'lag' that catches the Government out, up to now they've not been able to accept unpalatable projections until they happen. So yeah, 7 deaths a day isn't a lot for Covid, but by the time people start dying in large numbers, it's all ready too late and we're at the start of another big wave that will take us until at least the autumn to get down again.
Boris doesn't like playing the strict parent, he knows many people, with good reason, will blame him for Delta reaching the UK so if he had to say June 21st is off because of that, he'll look bad, knowing him, he'll fluff it, he's announce some loosening of restrictions on the 21st, and leave the rest up to us, which will be mostly ignored until it's a big problem again.
I know the public are very quickly running out of tolerance for restrictions, so the time when we have to let nature take it's course is coming, but you need more than 42% of the population fully vaccinated, or a lot of the remaining 58% are going to get sick.
My personal opinion is that, as much as I'm fed up of it, Wales keeping Social Distancing in place, probably until the end of the year at least, is the way to go. With another big push, we could have everyone over-12 in the UK vaccinated and we stand a chance of putting it behind us.
Yes, but that is ignoring how bad things currently are. Saying there were waiting lists that could/should have been reduced before the pandemic is true, but things are now many times worse… and will get worse still if the NHS has to deal with another wave, even if that wave involves far fewer deaths that the previous ones.
Trust me it's not because of covid. It's because of decades of poor investment and neglect of the NHS in an attempt to wean us off it and eventually dissolve it into a private entity. The less appealing they can make the NHS to the electorate the more likely they are to go along with privatising it.
I reiterate, we should not be paying for decades of mistakes and neglect with restrictions on our private life. The government has had over a year to prepare and fund the NHS for the eventual backlog but has chosen not to, by carrying on with Brexit and driving a large chunk of the staff out of the country, and spending funding that should have provided new hospital space and staff on giving contracts to their mates and on perpetual quantitative easing to make the economy look as if it has been fixed.
I'm not willingly going along with it anymore - paying for the government's ineptitude with my freedom.
Trust me it’s not because of covid.
> sigh <
Whatever mate.
Strong counter point
The NHS was underfunded, and was ill prepared for the pandemic. The pandemic has resulted in a huge backlog of care, and people being turned away for services they desperately need. A further wave of Covid19 hospitalisations, even if the results are more favourable this time around (average stay much shorter and more patients surviving) is going to result in a further burden on the NHS and the staff that work in it, and even more people facing delays for even longer, or denied treatment, and that is something we absolutely should be acting to avoid in the coming weeks.
So the way to deal with the government's under-funding and failure to further invest in the NHS is to crash it?
It's bold, I'll give you that. 🙃
and that is something we absolutely should be acting to avoid in the coming weeks.
Best we lock back down now then because it's the only way.
I can’t see any rational reason why large numbers of Covid hospitalisations won’t have further exacerbated delays in treatment within the NHS. And further large numbers won’t do the same again.
Best we lock back down now then because it’s the only way.
There's a world of options between "lock down" and "no restrictions", but that point has been made so many times already.
Our 19 yr old just got the nod for her first jab, and now booked for next week. Things are flying along! We're getting to a really good place in the UK. And now hopefully we'll be doing more to help other countries (as the USA are finally preparing to do).
Trust me it’s not because of covid. It’s because of decades of poor investment and neglect of the NHS in an attempt to wean us off it and eventually dissolve it into a private entity. The less appealing they can make the NHS to the electorate the more likely they are to go along with privatising it.
I reiterate, we should not be paying for decades of mistakes and neglect with restrictions on our private life. The government has had over a year to prepare and fund the NHS for the eventual backlog but has chosen not to, by carrying on with Brexit and driving a large chunk of the staff out of the country, and spending funding that should have provided new hospital space and staff on giving contracts to their mates and on perpetual quantitative easing to make the economy look as if it has been fixed.
I’m not willingly going along with it anymore – paying for the government’s ineptitude with my freedom.
My opinion, based on the experiences of my Wife, an NHS Nurse.
Obvious 10 years of austerity has taken it's toll, whether or not that's the Tory's plan for privatisation or just general 'give to the rich and steal from the poor' Tory dogma, who can say?
But that's maybe 5% of the reason for the waiting lists, it's 95% Covid related. In late March, early April 2020 the NHS went onto a war footing, if anything it was downplayed in the media, but it was as dramatic as anything She, or any of her colleges with decades of experience had ever seen.
In her teams case, within days of Boris' first speech the Maintenance team had ripped out her office (modern hospitals are quite modular) and turned it into a ward. I know from our experience in work, the people we support who work on the Admin side of the Children's Charity who run a specialist Children Ward had the same 2 days notice that they need to move, because your office is not going to exist on day 3.
She was redeployed, not to Covid work, but to support other teams who'd had their staff taken for Covid work, this was repeated all over the Hospital and Trust. Her usual patients, just lost her, because they went from a team of 8, to 2, and then 1, who only saw the more urgent of cases. Their waiting time of around 3 weeks didn't change, but the criteria for getting on it changed massively. A lot of suffering happened because of it.
For a few weeks they were crazy busy and then as the first wave started to ease, they were quiet, really quiet. The largest hospital in Cardiff had the lowest level of occupancy in it's history last summer. For those working on the Covid wards it was incredibly hard work, but sheer chance I had to visit one last May, only as far as the door, but the activity level was obvious (frankly it felt very strange being there), but the rest of the hospital was eerily quiet, waiting for a worst, worst case that thankfully never came. I know there was a sense of pride and relief when they 'opened' the field hospitals last year, but honestly, in hindsight, if we ever had to really use them, the death toll would have made what happened last year seem like a decent result.
She only got back to her normal team / job in March, they spent most of Feb trying to get up and running, even now, they're working, but the admin is a nightmare because they still don't have an office and their admin staff are still WFH. Their work load is crazy, but they're seeing patients again, so they're getting through them. Because a lot of their work is with end-of-life patients and the very elderly their waiting list is now about 6 weeks, rather than months and months.
As above, this is the case for different departments and hospitals all over the trust, I know I was meant to have surgery late last year, I had it early this year instead and that was only because the NHS paid for me to have it privately (not my choice).
I don't want to offer the Government an excuse, but it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it, you can't train new Nurses and Doctors in months, it takes years. You can blame them for things like cutting the Nurse Training Bursary years ago, but no one had heard about Covid then.
It’s always the ‘lag’ that catches the Government out, up to now they’ve not been able to accept unpalatable projections until they happen
That's the basis for my preference for caution now. The government has consistently failed to act in time when tough decisions needed to be made, and I don't trust them to fail again.
While I'm well aware of the mental health issues linked to lockdiwns and businesses closing, as I understand it there is no data supporting the theory that lockdowns have increased the suicide rate. Lockdowns aren't killing people. The virus has killed 150,000+ people looking at the corrected figures from death certificates.
I know which I think is the one to be wary of.
I’m not willingly going along with it anymore – paying for the government’s ineptitude with my freedom.
But paying for it with yours or someone else's life is ok.
Hyperbole I know, but not far from the truth, and we don't need to keep up the restrictions much longer in order to put us as a nation in a properly good place, rather than risk snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
For those working on the Covid wards it was incredibly hard work, but sheer chance I had to visit one last May, only as far as the door, but the activity level was obvious (frankly it felt very strange being there), but the rest of the hospital was eerily quiet, waiting for a worst, worst case that thankfully never came.
I can echo that, had to visit the Heath with my dad around that time and it was a surreal experience. His appointment was in an empty part of the hospital that's normally busy but you could see across to the Covid section and that was flat-out but organised. I didn't get to go in but speaking to the staff I did interact with they said it was incredibly tough. Dad came back out of his appointment very humbled at the fact he was still getting treatment at the time, mostly on time compared to normal timescales too.
I don’t want to offer the Government an excuse, but it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at it, you can’t train new Nurses and Doctors in months, it takes years.
Absolutely. The damage was done over the last decade of under-investment and will take that long, or even longer, to rectify. The issue now is that an awful lot of the current staff are at, or even way beyond, breaking point so will leave as soon as they can and will need to be replaced. If the next wave happens at even 50% of the worst-case scenario it could easily bring the whole lot toppling down.
Whatever decision Johnson makes in the next few days will set the scene for this winter. Unfortunately the way it will play out is so reliant on a number of variable factors that we will only really know the result in real-time. Add in the delays in the results manifesting themselves and we run the real risk of the slightest mistake leading to far-reaching consequences that we will have little chance to supress.
There’s a world of options between “lock down” and “no restrictions”, but that point has been made so many times already.
Sorry you're right, lets lock back down to - Essential shops, schools, nail salons and garden centres.
It seemed to hold the tide of infections increasing.
We could already see this coming two, even three weeks ago, I even called it and I'm far from a genius. Now we're two days from the big announcement which i think will be to pause reopening, but in leaving it late creating extra chaos to those that have continued to prepare to open. Food and drink orders, staffing, etc., can't easily be cancelled at the last moment.
All. Too. Predictable.
As for 'decades of underinvestment so do nothing now'
My house has caught fire, I know I should have installed a sprinkler system, so I won't call the fire brigade? It's even more important we protect the NHS and save lives now BECAUSE we DIDN'T invest when we should have.
All. Too. Predictable.
Well it is Boris the Coward we're talking about here.
we don’t need to keep up the restrictions much longer in order to put us as a nation in a properly good place, rather than risk snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Can't say this often enough. We are 2-4 weeks away from being in an excellent position. All the experts and data point to this. Do we really want to risk throwing it away now?
On this side of the channel the rate of vaccination has slowed this week, plenty of vaccination slots available on my phone app, I could get a Pfizer slot tomorrow if I were 18. It's now the number of candidates that's the limiting factor rather than the vaccines available - we're looking like the US a few weeks back. Whoever predicted this, you were right. I look forward to governement promotion campaign starting in a few days time.
On the bright side anyone wanting to go on holiday from mid July will have had the chance to get two doses and a QR code.
Having had the second dose I've now got an EU recognised QR code on my phone (and a paper copy) which means the EU frontiers are open to me without a test. But would they let me into Blighty?
the rest are from GPs refusing to see anyone for the last 14 months
Airvent, I am afraid that this is an exaggeration from my experience. Yes, we have all found it less satisfactory than before and undoubtedly hasn’t worked for every one everywhere.
However, all of the practices in my area have been having face to face consultations throughout the pandemic, determined by clinical need after telephone triage. This has meant fewer face to face than previously so most consultations have been via video or telephone.
No way could this be considered refusing to see anyone.
Do we really want to risk throwing it away now?
Yeah sod it why not? After all it worked so well the last times.
I am hoping the Christmas climb down might indicate the path this time but that said that time was late enough plenty of people went sod it and went and spread it around when they got home anyway.
I will admit to being rather irritated by it all. I am willing to make sacrifices but there seems to be a consistent pattern of squandering all of the sacrifices in order to allow a few to be selfish idiots.
Rumour is a 4 week delay.
https://www.ft.com/content/fa7c25be-d3df-4edd-b86f-b86780b28f95
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15241170/boris-johnson-june-lockdown-delay/
The explaination of the delay is important to manage expectations
My hope - we need to finish vaccination rollout which will take 4 more weeks and then we will open up
My fear - we need 4 more weeks to get more data and will update you again in mid July.
My worst fear - we need to lockdown again if cases continue to rise
Rumour is a 4 week delay
I doubt the June 21st easing will make much difference, the big step was last month allowing indoor mixing in households/pubs/restaurants etc. We’d have probably got away with it if our incompetent overlords had closed the borders with India a month earlier. We’d still have ended up with the Indian variant being dominant eventually, but the importation of thousands of cases has brought that date forward such that the level of vaccination at the moment is insufficient to prevent significant exponential growth in cases and the inevitable increase in deaths and admissions.
And indoor mixing, without masks, in secondary schools and sixth forms. The schools here are still trying to keep mask use going, but without a national message (from government and in the media) to support mask use, it is getting more and more difficult. My son is complaining of missing whole lessons where pupils are arguing with the teacher, ripping off masks, and making a point of not wearing them. His school is wasting hundreds of disposable masks a day giving one (and in some cases many) to pupils who refuse to bring their own mask in.
Anyway, that the government delayed the India travel ban, let the delta variant spread in schools, and messed up the mask wearing in schools message while hiding data that should have helped inform the national decision on that… well, that’s the latest what the f combo for me.
https://twitter.com/salbrinton/status/1403413490107301891?s=21
And indoor mixing, without masks, in secondary schools and sixth forms.
I didn’t realise they were scrapping masks indoors, it just mentions nightclubs and large events on the government website.
Masks in school stopped being compulsory at the last easing.
Think it very much depends on the school/pupils as to how well that's going.
21st June was meant to be the dropping of all restrictions. Full stop. MrsMC and I have always thought that target was unlikely to be met.
We're expecting Level 0 around that time in Scotland. That doesn't mean a total lifting of all restrictions.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-protection-levels/pages/protection-level-0/
Various scientists have mentioned that mask wearing in public spaces and hand washing should continue indefinitely as we see in some Asian places / visitors to the uk.
I can echo that, had to visit the Heath with my dad around that time and it was a surreal experience. His appointment was in an empty part of the hospital that’s normally busy
I went to hospital for a minor outpatient op twice last year. Both times very quiet in the area of the hospital I was in and on the second one - November - one of the nurses apologised for the delay. With a conversation based on some empathy for the NHS situation she revealed to me that the delay was caused by short staffing as rota’s were managed to redirect people that could help in the Covid wards/situation. Her working in her “usual” place of work was consider to be a break from the madness. Wow.
I sincerely hope we get a continuation of the current restrictions and mask wearing in schools until the school holidays. With the kids then back at home it would appear to be one obvious way to reduce the spread of Delta. Having said that, how many are travelling away from there locality across UK geographical borders to holiday in June / August? For that reason I’d also state the premises need to continue to be Covid prepped (distancing, one way foot traffic, sanitiser stations, crowd avoidance) all the way to September.
Various scientists have mentioned that mask wearing in public spaces and hand washing should continue indefinitely as we see in some Asian places / visitors to the uk.
Face masks should be voluntary after this year. Hand washing is just common sense.
Long term it should absolutely be voluntary, but while the pandemic is ongoing we need to act together.
Extending lockdown is only an issue because Johnson made such a fuss about setting a date before the local elections
Likewise ignored advice & delayed redlisting India so he could announce a trade deal before them
Fortunately for him the electorate seem to have the memory of goldfish, but this situation is yet another unforced error in the handling of the pandemic
I don't think they'll return to stronger lockdowns after this delay. They will use this few weeks of real numbers of illnesses to gauge how many vaccinated end up in hospital: if the number is dealable with they will unlock.
Covid can have an R number of 10, if it's not sending people to hospital, but giving people further antibodies, they aren't locking down the economy again. There's a reason our big slogan for covid was 'protect the NHS'. The vaccine does that. If people aren't dying in large numbers and the vaccine keeps it to several thousand a year, gov will accept that new normal.
People need to come to terms with the fact we are never aiming for Zero Covid, the vaccine is not the silver bullet to covid it's the silver bullet to ICU cases. If we aren't filling ICUs that's it, that's the government's 'mission accomplished'.
Fortunately for him the electorate seem to have the memory of goldfish, but this situation is yet another unforced error in the handling of the pandemic
I thought HM’s comment yesterday at the G7 was very poignant; “Should you all be looking like your enjoying yourselves?”
It’s just a game to them, based on playing toy soldiers with the public livestock to mitigate their the personal ambitions and fortunes, let’s not forget that.
Note Whitty is not on the honours list but some of his colleagues are. Someone’s being punished for his inability to be lie and lick Hancock’s arse.
People need to come to terms with the fact we are never aiming for Zero Covid, the vaccine is not the silver bullet to covid it’s the silver bullet to ICU cases. If we aren’t filling ICUs that’s it, that’s the government’s ‘mission accomplished’.
I think most here know that. Personally I see Delta as the first experiment toward that brief. If only they learn the lessons, and when Echo arrives we don’t have several weeks of inbound flights to ensure it washes upon our shores any more than we have to.
I think most here know that. Personally I see Delta as the first experiment toward that brief. If only they learn the lessons, and when Echo arrives we don’t have several weeks of inbound flights to ensure it washes upon our shores any more than we have to.
It’s just a game to them, based on playing toy soldiers with the public livestock to mitigate their the personal ambitions and fortunes, let’s not forget that.
This is the thing isn't it. We all gave it our best shot, went through lockdown hell for so long and they didn't close the borders for fear of upsetting Modhi. For all the social media whinging the vast majority of the public made huge sacrifices only for the benefits of those sacrifices to be squandered by idiot Johnson and the elite not taking it seriously.
This is why patience is wearing thin. I think any significant delays to the roadmap will lead to widespread civil unrest. You saw the five figure crowds of people protesting lockdowns in London over the past few weeks - that number is going to grow to the point where the media can no longer ignore it.
People are done with this shit. We didn't lock down effectively enough the first or second time around, and on our third lockdown we didn't even bother to shut the borders to Indians even while a new variant was sweeping their nation.
We keep having to lose liberties because of political cock ups and myopia. The way to address that is to vote them out when we get the chance, not to punish NHS workers and patients by exposing them to another wave of cases and keeping waiting lists at record highs by refusing to do what’s needed.
People need to come to terms with the fact we are never aiming for Zero Covid, the vaccine is not the silver bullet to covid it’s the silver bullet to ICU cases. If we aren’t filling ICUs that’s it, that’s the government’s ‘mission accomplished’.
The vast majority of us on here have known this since the beginning, it's only a quibble about the timing.
The arguments about loss of liberties need taking up with the people who have caused it to drag on for so long, and be so damaging to the economy, due to their continued lack of bottle. Don’t bitch that it might be delayed a wee while, get furiously angry that it wasn't dealt with properly from the very beginning. Then friends and family may not be dead.
You saw the five figure crowds of people protesting lockdowns in London over the past few weeks – that number is going to grow to the point where the media can no longer ignore it.
Protests have been happening since the start of this, not just in London either and on a regular basis. The Government are controlling the mainstream media by paying them to keep to a script which is why there's been little coverage of these demonstrations and pretty much none by the BBC. On 29th May there were several hundred thousand marching through London, the largest so far. I was there in honour of my father and grandfathers who fought in both Wars, I can not allow the Government to continue to destroy this country and its people.
This ain't gonna end any time soon, here's some evidence:
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/6043d1fd-1f8c-4232-a32a-a658e19abcb1?origin
The Government are controlling the mainstream media by paying them to keep to a script
The government are paying who?
This ain’t gonna end any time soon, here’s some evidence
What, a media buying contract just like anyone else would use if they were putting out a load of messages, in this case its probably all the covid related messaging (you know, the ads they put on telly) rather than "buy more stuff" but that is hardly evidence of silencing the press.
Face masks should be voluntary after this year
My BiL says he has already given up - 'no-one else is bothering'
Fortunately my wife, his sister, has sufficient relationship with him that she just put him back in his place. A few are not bothering, but the vast majority are, and I hope that if made voluntary still would. It's no hardship really for most (yes, some who rely on eg: lip reading excepted, and I'd happily lower a mask to enable comms in that case) - but I wonder how the social pressure to wear / not wear masks would then play out........the protestors are already baa-ing at people following a mandate, let alone an option.
Conspiracy theory, Brexit vote, WWII references, I doubt you'll get an answer, Kelvin. However I was pleased to note the government has invested in advertising to counter the anti-mask, anti-vax, anti-lockdown people who would rather see people die than take the necessary measures.
This ain’t gonna end any time soon, here’s some evidence:
Thats not evidence that backs up your assertions
I think CG has now gone full tin foil hat.
I think there will be a tipping point with mask wearing, at some point when the average person doesn't feel like they are the only one not wearing one adherence will drop pretty quickly, if it becomes voluntary I think mask wearing will drop overnight.
I know it not a major inconvenience but we live in a country where half the people lose their shut over hi collections and parking spaces, we are not a very matureor pleasant society at the moment, covid and Brexit have both demonstrated and worsened that under Boris.
On 29th May there were several hundred thousand marching through London, the largest so far
That is a massive overstatement; a few tens of thousands at most.
As for the link, it's nothing more than a contract award notice which confirms the CCS have...awarded a media buying contract.
But would they let me into Blighty?
Put another way, why would you want to come? Officials are getting ever nastier and brutish on the border with official blessing from the poison dwarf at their head. We have adverts on the TV asking EU citizens to register to stay by 30 June even if they have official leave to remain papers.
It is shaming how insular our officials are.
