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Coronavirus - the new strain XXII

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mansr said:
This virus is never going away entirely. Having a lockdown every time someone sneezes isn't a viable way to live long-term. Sooner or later, we'll have to accept the presence of the virus, even if it ends up killing a few people every year. With the help of vaccines, that time may well be now. If not now, then when? That's the question I'd like to see answered by the lockdown enthusiasts.
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As I explained above in #1594 I am not aware of any lockdown enthusiasts.

If we reach the point of a lockdown being the best step to take (dependant upon saving lives, giving the NHS a breather and enabling better vaccines and treatments a bit more time to be developed / put out into use), then the previous policies have completely failed and a lockdown is least bad next stage. Or we have come across a new, more transmissible and deadly variant that we need to try and stamp out or buy a bit of time.

And the use of specifics NPIs (they have been explained on here so many times now that I will not repeat myself or others) will make the situation better for the country whilst not damaging the economy (again see the graph #1593, the UK is in the bad quarter and is mainly there because of decisions made by the government) and will improve things for the longer term, whether we have Covid around or not.
 
I likely have missed the latest news from the UK, but I thought the restrictions Boris brought in amounted to requiring people to wear a mask unless they’d rather not.

Joe
 
Not in ages, but if you think the health risk from secondhand smoke equates to the risk of infection from a respiratory virus you’re wrong.

Joe
 
Nigel,

The health risk from secondhand smoke is high enough that people haven’t been able to smoke in public places here since 2000. But what does that have to do with measures to limit the spread and impact of an infectious variant?

Joe
 
I mentioned smoking deaths because those are apparently deemed acceptable by our society, despite the huge associated healthcare costs (cancer treatment ain't cheap), and because the numbers are similar. Looking at pre-covid ONS figures, there were roughly 130,000 avoidable deaths each year in the UK, around 22% of all deaths. Of these, nearly 90,000 were deemed preventable, meaning they could have been avoided through some kind of health and safety measures. For some reason, we collectively choose not to. For example, deaths in traffic accidents could be virtually eliminated by reducing all speed limits to 20 mph. Apparently, the convenience of being able to get places quickly outweighs the risks. (I don't know how many of the ~75,000 annual smoking-related deaths are counted as avoidable/preventable.)

When it comes to covid, I don't think a "zero tolerance" approach can work, just like it doesn't work for any other undesirable thing. Therefore, we must somehow decide what level of covid presence is to be simply accepted without calls for restrictions of the types we have (reasonably, in most cases) had on and off for the last couple of years. That's a discussion that so far has been notably absent, at least to my knowledge.
 
I'm guessing that the vast majority of people, not just on pfm, realise there's a balance to be struck between total lockdown at one extreme, and no controls at the other extreme. IMO it's simply too soon to move away from controls altogether, because we don't have sufficient information. But one inescapable lesson must be that starving the health service of resources was the worst possible preparation for when Covid struck, and that we must never allow ourselves to be put in that place again by some spurious need to 'balance the books' or 'pay down the debt'.
 
Joe Hutch said:
But one inescapable lesson must be that starving the health service of resources was the worst possible preparation for when Covid struck, and that we must never allow ourselves to be put in that place again by some spurious need to 'balance the books' or 'pay down the debt'.
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Also, don't believe anything written on a red bus.
 
gavreid said:
Follow the money!

CDC’s new guidance to drop isolation of positives to 5 days without a negative test is reckless Some ppl stay infectious 3 days,Some 12 I absolutely don’t want to sit next to someone who turned Pos 5 days ago and hasnt tested Neg. Test Neg to leave isolation early is just smart

https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1475598522338656266?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
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Note that he’s “100% for getting people to drop isolation early” - he just wants to LFT first. Seems reasonable. US seems not to have embraced LFTs though.

In any case, seems only a small minority are likely to still be infectious at 5 days, and as ever this is about balance and trade-offs.

https://twitter.com/bquilty/status/1475787390375632905?s=21
 
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