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mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
I hope that people will learn that deristricted December means cocked-up Christmas or a long lockdown afterwards, but I also hope we're not in the same situation for a third Christmas in a row!
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Maybe you're so old hippy that your parents are no longer with you/us. For many it is not lunacy but a balanced risk to meet with family and close friends at Christmas: this might be my mother's last Christmas (and of course it might not be). I'll take care not to be the one who she catches it from (and her grandchildren are sensible and prudent too). Human lives are about social interaction: those lives must come first.
Or maybe that's what you're arguing. 159 lives were lost in UK last year swimming in the sea and rivers: should we prohibit that?
I agree that worrying about the night entertainment industry and the coffee/sandwich bars of London are pretty low on the vast majority of people's set of priorities.
I also wonder about the anomaly where spectators to football matches have to show covid status whereas the Premier League (footie) report that about 25% of players are refusing to get vaccinated: lunacy.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Oldhippy
Cynical idealist
I agree with you on a lot but it is a virus it sadly has to be all or nothing in my opinion.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
Looking forward in the sense of contemplating it. Surely there's a chance that a new variant arises next autumn, followed by dither, delay and another panic vaccination round? Why wouldn't there be? Far from being "we're doomed", I hope it's not a big chance!
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Obviously, the data isn't in yet, and unfortunately people ARE dying from Omicron, but it might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. It is so infectious that we must surely end up with herd immunity eventually, either by infection or by vaccination? If that can be achieved with much smaller losses than with earlier variants then Omicron displacing Delta might overall be a good thing?
Fingers crossed...
Fingers crossed...
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Would prefer to style this as an 'accelerated' (as opposed to 'panic') booster programme, in light of a new variant with higher transmission ability. But the idea of a Sunday evening PM statement without planning ahead for the inevitable surge of demand was ill-founded (polite) - hopefully this is not too radical a thought to be modded to oblivion.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Less than were dying from Delta (per CFR) but as you say, the data are insufficient (time from symptomatic infection to death lag) to get a proper estimate. The real challenge is going to be severely reduced not infected/cohabiting infected person NHS staff to man/woman the wards for the normal (let alone abnormal) winter peak of hospital need. Any reporting on levels of winter flu or is that going to be as low as Jan 2021?
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
The herd immunity possibility was killed off by a combination of Delta and none of the vaccines cutting transmission enough. The most likely route out of the pandemic is now endemicity. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2?code=fdaafcbb-2cc1-44b9-ae0d-55073db3b47a
Oldhippy
Cynical idealist
There in lies the problem, huge numbers will consider they've had it hard enough or 'suffered' long enough and will just make sure things are in place for the next spread by ignoring common sense.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
We'll only get to community immunity if the protection offered by pre-infection or vaccination (number of doses and frequency tbc) is very high and can outmatch the reproduction capability of whichever variant is dominant. This seems unlikely to happen any time soon. And a variant which is less transmissible than Omicron will not become dominant: the bar has been set high. So we'll have to settle with endemic; like flu. One has no option but to hope that the virulence of the dominant variant reduces to become less able to cause severe illness, and hopefully (again) less long term health issues.
