Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[ForeverBlue92]

Nowhere in the world that has a decent number of cases has managed to suppress COVID is like saying nowhere with flood waters three feet deep has managed to stop flooding though. "Decent" numbers of cases happen because there aren't proper defences in place to prevent numbers getting that high.

It probably isn't ever going to go away, but we can certainly get something that will pick up cases quickly, get the people involved to isolate and trace who might have been put at risk. Most of the time, that is going to be enough to contain these things.

Serious question mate but do you enjoy living like this?

You acknowledge yourself its likely never going to go away - 1 in 3 people are asymptomatic this aint ever getting stopped therefore by that token how can we ever hope to open up nightclubs, festivals etc if we are obsessed about case rates?

It's either get back to normality with common sense like vaccine take ups and washing hands etc or stay home forever and waste the 1 life you have on this planet as we are all scared of ever catching it.

 

[tsubaki]

Serious question mate but do you enjoy living like this?

You acknowledge yourself its likely never going to go away - 1 in 3 people are asymptomatic this aint ever getting stopped therefore by that token how can we ever hope to open up nightclubs, festivals etc if we are obsessed about case rates?

It's either get back to normality with common sense like vaccine take ups and washing hands etc or stay home forever and waste the 1 life you have on this planet as we are all scared of ever catching it.

No, and thats why I want to go back to normal - but a proper normal, not the fantasy of this disease somehow being in widespread circulation and yet it "only" killing 10,000 people a year and never overwhelming the healthcare system. I'd honestly have hoped that the past year and a half, two lockdowns, hundreds of billions of pound worth of economic damage and all the dead people would have destroyed that theory, given its evidently wrong (and pretty much the exact opposite of common sense) but it seems not. Yet here we are, being told that its the only rational course of action again.

As for the asymptomatic cases - if you are identifying and isolating the 2/3 of the people with this (the symptomatic ones) and identifying their contacts, there isn't going to be community transmission on anything like the scale we have now (indeed you might not even have it at all). The people who do have symptoms are going to, probably quite quickly via their contacts, make it obvious the ones who are infectious but do not have symptoms. Once you do not have community transmission, genuine normality can resume.

The problem with you (and others) is that you've believed the lie that it isn't possible to contain this and that containing it only means its total absence from everywhere. If this really is a naturally occurring thing, there are going to be outbreaks of variants of this worldwide for years - which is why we do not want to be left in a position where there is nothing whatsoever to impede those variants from getting here and spreading.

If however this instead is something that has been created and weaponised, how anyone could be ok with this just circulating around the country (to say nothing of other things that could be sent over here) without anything to stop it absolutely baffles me. It would be like Churchill in 1941 disbanding the RAF.

 

[Tubey]

No, and thats why I want to go back to normal - but a proper normal, not the fantasy of this disease somehow being in widespread circulation and yet it "only" killing 10,000 people a year and never overwhelming the healthcare system. I'd honestly have hoped that the past year and a half, two lockdowns, hundreds of billions of pound worth of economic damage and all the dead people would have destroyed that theory, given its evidently wrong (and pretty much the exact opposite of common sense) but it seems not. Yet here we are, being told that its the only rational course of action again.

As for the asymptomatic cases - if you are identifying and isolating the 2/3 of the people with this (the symptomatic ones) and identifying their contacts, there isn't going to be community transmission on anything like the scale we have now (indeed you might not even have it at all). The people who do have symptoms are going to, probably quite quickly via their contacts, make it obvious the ones who are infectious but do not have symptoms. Once you do not have community transmission, genuine normality can resume.

The problem with you (and others) is that you've believed the lie that it isn't possible to contain this and that containing it only means its total absence from everywhere. If this really is a naturally occurring thing, there are going to be outbreaks of variants of this worldwide for years - which is why we do not want to be left in a position where there is nothing whatsoever to impede those variants from getting here and spreading.

If however this instead is something that has been created and weaponised, how anyone could be ok with this just circulating around the country (to say nothing of other things that could be sent over here) without anything to stop it absolutely baffles me. It would be like Churchill in 1941 disbanding the RAF.

Absolutely baffling.

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

It's either get back to normality with common sense like vaccine take ups and washing hands etc or stay home forever and waste the 1 life you have on this planet as we are all scared of ever catching it

Not going to be a getting back to normal until health and social care is able to manage the waves of pressure this virus causes on services, so until staffing and funding gaps are rectified we will continue not live life as normal. Harsh reality that only foolish want to ignore. The only caveat is that the virus catches up with some of its human hosts and evolves to ineptitude.

Absolutely baffling.

It's only baffling because the consequences of just getting back normal does not rest on your shoulders. Unless you are Grant Shapps many internet aliases etc.

 

[tsubaki]

Absolutely baffling.

don't worry tubey, if we end up in another lockdown you might understand then

 

[ForeverBlue92]

Absolutely baffling.

I bet the lad didnt think once about the 10k-20k a year Flu was killing up until 12 months ago.

 

[Tubey]

It's only baffling because the consequences of just getting back normal does not rest on your shoulders. Unless you are Grant Shapps many internet aliases etc.

How about the consequences of not getting back to normal?

25,000 people a year die due to cars. We don't ban cars, even though those deaths are 'preventable', because clearly there's a benefit.

There's an obvious line you have to draw. Tsubaki, bafflingly, doesn't see it that way. He's happy with restrictions on freedoms and people losing their livelihoods left, right and centre as long as, in his words, we still have some form of community transmission, regardless of what the effect of that transmission is. It's effectively a zero COVID policy, which is impossible. Absolutely impossible.

 

[toffee82]

I bet the lad didnt think once about the 10k-20k a year Flu was killing up until 12 months ago.

Once covid becomes fully endemic the waves will naturally get smaller due to herd immunity and the remarkable effectiveness of the vaccines.
The numbers going forward will be lower than the flu as they have already said. Ironically, they think flu will be worse because of the effects of social distancing.

 

[Tubey]

don't worry tubey, if we end up in another lockdown you might understand then

What's the evidence for another lockdown? Hospitalisations lower, deaths much lower, the vaccines have decimated the link between them and cases.

The case rate on its own means nothing. If a million people a day catch COVID and 10 of them end up in hospital, that's obviously acceptable. We're now seeing a strain that is 100% more transmissable 'rip through' the country and it's barely doing anything because of vaccination; indeed, it's only making people who haven't had the vaccine even the remotest bit ill.

Your mindset is bizarre and ignores the reality of the situation, as shown with your RAF analogy - you don't need the RAF if you've already grounded the Nazi planes in the first instance, which we've done with the vaccines.

Will COVID come back repeatedly? Yes. Will strains get round the vaccines eventually? Yes. But we have T-cell immunity to the general virus and vaccines will be made to meet the variants every year, like we do now with the flu. We didn't lockdown every winter for the flu, or contact trace, because that way madness lies - jobs lost, economic damage, mental health issues all over the shop etc. etc. etc. and yet that's precisely what you want to do for some mad reason.

Just absurd.

 

[tsubaki]

What's the evidence for another lockdown? Hospitalisations lower, deaths much lower, the vaccines have decimated the link between them and cases.

The case rate on its own means nothing. If a million people a day catch COVID and 10 of them end up in hospital, that's obviously acceptable. We're now seeing a strain that is 100% more transmissable 'rip through' the country and it's barely doing anything because of vaccination; indeed, it's only making people who haven't had the vaccine even the remotest bit ill.

Your mindset is bizarre and ignores the reality of the situation, as shown with your RAF analogy - you don't need the RAF if you've already grounded the Nazi planes in the first instance, which we've done with the vaccines.

Will COVID come back repeatedly? Yes. Will strains get round the vaccines eventually? Yes. But we have T-cell immunity to the general virus and vaccines will be made to meet the variants every year, like we do now with the flu. We didn't lockdown every winter for the flu, or contact trace, because that way madness lies - jobs lost, economic damage, mental health issues all over the shop etc. etc. etc. and yet that's precisely what you want to do for some mad reason.

Just absurd.

I am sure this would be a relevant argument for some who was actually arguing for another lockdown, Tubey.

I don’t want one, indeed I’ve repeatedly said what a complete failure of policy they represent - yet here you are, insisting on a course of action that makes them much more likely.

If a variant emerges that the vaccines aren’t as effective against emerges, or god forbid another pandemic happens, what on earth are we going to do? Watching you reverse ferret on it will only provide limited amusement.

 

[BlueToff]

Just seen the news about Sydney. Australia's government are a joke. Their methods at the start were clearly spot on, in terms of taking everything into account. Their methods now, of snap, now multi-week lockdowns etc, is just baffling when the vaccine is readily available.

Only 3% of their adult population has been fully vaccinated and 25% have had their first dose.

Aus has an approx population of 26m (adjusted since the 2019 census).

They could have had their adult population nearly done by now had they stepped it up.

 

[Tubey]

I am sure this would be a relevant argument for some who was actually arguing for another lockdown, Tubey.

I don’t want one, indeed I’ve repeatedly said what a complete failure of policy they represent - yet here you are, insisting on a course of action that makes them much more likely.

If a variant emerges that the vaccines aren’t as effective against emerges, or god forbid another pandemic happens, what on earth are we going to do? Watching you reverse ferret on it will only provide limited amusement.

What you're suggesting is the equivalent of Homer Simpson wanting a Bear Patrol because a bear wondered into Springfield once.

Millions live near Mount Etna knowing theoretically the thing could blow at any moment. Millions live directly on the San Andreas fault and know they could be decimated by a 9.0+ earthquake any given day. They mitigate these risks where they can without adversely affecting every day life, like earthquake resistant buildings or lava channels etc. but ultimately if these things happen, you react to them. You accept the possibility as a price of living freely.

That's what you clearly don't understand; people accept the risk of pandemics. They expect reasonable action to be taken to prevent them - like not letting the Chinese wet markets persist - but they won't accept unreasonable action. Your views are clearly unreasonable.

 

[BlueToff]

Just another note. Saw my mate yesterday who I mentioned had been in isolation. He's out now and all good, all tests negative etc, was just horrid for him to isolate for 10 days he said. Anyway, the lad he was a close contact of who did test positive ended up in hospital with pneumonia. It was mainly a precaution, and he's 26 and fit - though does have quite bad asthma. Not sure if he'd had the first vaccine or both doses or what. Anyway, the lad was in hospital for 3 nights in all. Never on a ventilator or anything like that, just to be monitored.

Again, shows how severe this thing can be and why yes, we do have to be careful - all ages. But at the same time, he was never ever going to die. He'll go down as a hospitalisation figure from COVID, even though by the time he got into hospital he actually tested negative - it was pneumonia that had developed from the impact of COVID. Now, he's a fit lad, young enough to fight it off. Our deaths seem to be staying low because this is generally the kind of person that is now ending up in hospital, not as much your older groups (or even middle-aged).

 

[tsubaki]

What you're suggesting is the equivalent of Homer Simpson wanting a Bear Patrol because a bear wondered into Springfield once.

Millions live near Mount Etna knowing theoretically the thing could blow at any moment. Millions live directly on the San Andreas fault and know they could be decimated by a 9.0+ earthquake any given day. They mitigate these risks where they can without adversely affecting every day life, like earthquake resistant buildings or lava channels etc. but ultimately if these things happen, you react to them. You accept the possibility as a price of living freely.

That's what you clearly don't understand; people accept the risk of pandemics. They expect reasonable action to be taken to prevent them - like not letting the Chinese wet markets persist - but they won't accept unreasonable action. Your views are clearly unreasonable.

Well that’s just a remarkable take - how you get from “people take rational steps to mitigate against disaster” to “rational steps to mitigate disasters are unreasonable”.

I would bet people would prefer that we had the same sort of system to deal with this emergency as we do with emergencies generally, ie: people whose job it is to prevent where possible and give advance warning / deal with them if not.

I mean, that’s what we already do with fires, accidents, crime, motorway incidents, terrorism, war and even public health (though sadly not enough in this case). To say doing that with this is unreasonable isn’t, well, reasonable.

 

[Deleted member 48881]

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