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Coronavirus - the new strain XVIII

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gavreid said:
You've had your vaccines, now your on your own.
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No. You’ve had and will continue to get your vaccines . . . And we’ll keep you safe by controlling the borders, maintaining a test and trace service, and we’ll keep you informed of the best health recommendations . . .

The big unanswered question now is how the NHS will evolve to deal with the backlog, and indeed the new waves of covid cases. Personally I think that, modulo a surprising and worrying new variant, we’re on the covid home straights in the UK, and will be soon in Europe and the USA.
 
Is the Telegraph ready to declare war on Johnson for ‘refusing to give cast iron guarantees’?

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Even the old pantomime dame Charles Moore is at the end of his tether since Freedom Day mutated into Terminus Date (postponed).
 
Andrew C! said:
Indeed. I'm not sure what other long term choices any government would have in the current situation.

We aren't big enough to buy our way out of this one, and will again be passing debts onto our great grand children(I don't have kids, btw).

The public inquiry into this will be very tasty indeed.
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Sadly I think the public inquiry will be tied up in legal tape for a decade, will be a waste of money and the ultimately the usual watered down whitewash... look at the Chilcot Inquiry for a reference point.

On the subject of debt I keep reading how we should spend our way out of this, but we were already starting from one of the poorest financial positions of the developed nations and we have spent enormous sums of money thus far for very little real progress. I think growth is the way forward, but the blanket chucking of money around that many seem to advocate is not going to do anything but increase the burden on future generations unless we take some other actions alongside this.

The fact is that despite all the mistakes etc. we would be opening up on June 21 had we not imported the Delta variant, this cannot be ignored. Two things we need to do... start treating this as a global problem and until then be very careful about who we let in and out of the country. We also need time for the vaccine producers to get on top of how the variant is mutating and how to improve the vaccines as a consequence (in much the same way as they do with flu). Keeping variants at bay for now and helping vaccinate the world in the longer term will allow us to have true full 'normality' back meaning investment in growth after that will be sustainable. We may not like it, but no one significant is going to invest in growth schemes if another variant is likely to come winging its way through Heathrow and puts the country back to square one.
 
There will always be new variants, you cannot stop this. There will an endless round of vaccinations & boosters until it’s potency dissipates.
 
Woodface said:
There will always be new variants, you cannot stop this. There will an endless round of vaccinations & boosters until it’s potency dissipates.
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It is getting more dangerous, not milder. If the Delta variant had been the one that appeared 18 months ago, deaths would have been maybe 2-5x what we had, as younger people would have been hit and the hospitals would have collapsed before the first vaccine was available.
 
Re public inquiry I can see it foundering at least partly on contradictions between journalists' sense of reality and scientists'. Specifically support for isolation and borders. Everyone knows that lack of support for isolation is a key weakness to the government's approach, but everyone who matters just shrugs it off: what you gonna do, there's no magic money tree is there! So this key failing will continue to be ignored.

Meanwhile from the far right to the liberal left (i.e. the full spectrum of permitted opinion in the UK), the press is very, very excited about borders: that's what they'll focus on when it comes to the inquiry, just as as they're focusing on it now. And that won't come to anything either, because a majority of scientists will testify that more draconian border controls would only have delayed things.
 
Yes, just imagine if we'd delayed the Delta variant's arrival until more people were vaccinated, good job we ushered it in as we need the third wave sooner rather than later :rolleyes:
 
tiggers said:
Yes, just imagine if we'd delayed the Delta variant's arrival until more people were vaccinated, good job we ushered it in as we need the third wave sooner rather than later :rolleyes:
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The point is that come the inquiry the press will bay for blood over borders and you'll have lots of scientists testifying that actually the border policy was basically sound, according to mainstream epidemiological principles, and their own advice at the time. Meanwhile the scientists will testify that support for isolation would have made a huge difference and the journalists will shrug. And that will be the end of it.
 
Seanm said:
The point is that come the inquiry the press will bay for blood over borders and you'll have lots of scientists testifying that actually the border policy was basically sound, according to mainstream epidemiological principles, and their own advice at the time. Meanwhile the scientists will testify that support for isolation would have made a huge difference and the journalists will shrug. And that will be the end of it.
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The inquiry will be a waste of time as I have already said. However, my point stands! Delaying the arrival of delta would have been a good idea!
 
davidsrsb said:
It is getting more dangerous, not milder. If the Delta variant had been the one that appeared 18 months ago, deaths would have been maybe 2-5x what we had, as younger people would have been hit and the hospitals would have collapsed before the first vaccine was available.
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I am talking in historical terms, Covid may be unique but generally the potency decreases. This is more infectious as opposed to more deadly in terms of symptoms.
 
tiggers said:
The inquiry will be a waste of time as I have already said. However, my point stands! Delaying the arrival of delta would have been a good idea!
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But realistically, without going the full New-Zealand (totally unrealistic for the UK), that might have delayed its arrival by a week or two. Yes, every bit helps, but we do need perspective here.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
But realistically, without going the full New-Zealand (totally unrealistic for the UK), that might have delayed its arrival by a week or two. Yes, every bit helps, but we do need perspective here.
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Yes exactly. What a lot of border enthusiasts downplay, though, is that they really are talking about going the full New Zealand, for as long as it takes - i.e., years. Utterly bizarre position.
 
Woodface said:
I am talking in historical terms, Covid may be unique but generally the potency decreases. This is more infectious as opposed to more deadly in terms of symptoms.
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I wonder if this is wishful thinking ? Delta has shown that the virus can increase the R0 AND become more virulent. A virus with 20% mortality could still spread pretty effectively provided people were contagious for at least several days before becoming incapacitated.

I do wonder if there a chance we could see a variant with the mortality rate approaching the original SARS (10% generally, 50% over 60s) but with COVID-19's R0. I sincerely hope not, but I worry with COVID we may be at the "end of the beginning", rather than the "beginning of the end".

Vaccinating the world should be humanity's #1 priority right now.

https://theconversation.com/will-coronavirus-really-evolve-to-become-less-deadly-153817
 
mandryka said:
Some interesting fact checking stuff here about when the quarantine requirements were put in place between the Uk and the Indian Subcontinent.

India variant: Matt Hancock's red list claim fact-checked - BBC News

But it is just with hindsight that we can say that the Indian variant should have been a VOC as early as the start of April, as far as I can see. The Government should have put India on the red list, but for the wrong reasons!
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The argument that you hear about that is that if you wait until you’ve got all the evidence it will already be too late. No doubt there’s a case to be made for that but what I’ve noticed is that the costs of jumping the gun are never acknowledged.
 
Seanm said:
Yes exactly. What a lot of border enthusiasts downplay, though, is that they really are talking about going the full New Zealand, for as long as it takes - i.e., years. Utterly bizarre position.
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Oh great, it's another of you extrapolation to the extreme arguments to somehow reinforce a point that isn't being made by anyone but you.
 
tiggers said:
Oh great, it's another of you extrapolation to the extreme arguments to somehow reinforce a point that isn't being made by anyone but you.
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The point is that the extreme position is built into the argument. Uninformed border enthusiasts just wonder why we didn’t redlist this or that country sooner. The better informed will admit that that can only delay things, a little: you’ve got to have very hard blanket restrictions and police them very aggressively if what you want is to actually keep variants out - and there are no guarantees even then, as Vietnam demonstrates. But it’s rare that they’re upfront about this.
 
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