United Kingdom VI: Summer Lovin'

[Dogg Thang]

Fine. I will amend my statement to "if there is an effective vaccine". It was implied but there it is for clarity.

Edit: Actually, Marty, I'm sorry. I'm being grumpy and I'm directing it at you and that's unfair. I apologise. I'm just really tired with everything and I'm tired of the damage that the herd immunity myth did early on and the confusion it caused in people and how that set things back. None of that is your fault and you're making good points. I'm just being grumpy. Sorry about that. Carry on.

[MartyG]

No vaccine is 100% effective and a Covid-19 vaccine is unlikely to anywhere close to 100% effective, which is why the herd immunity is required (which is achieved through mass vaccination) - please read the article above - it explains the science. The more effective a vaccine is the less people need the vaccine for that herd immunity to be achieved. All vaccines work on the premise of herd immunity.

The "herd immunity" part is simply the term that's used to say that a high enough percentage of the population have effective immunity to prevent a virus from being able to spread further. There are just different methods of achieving it - the bad one (making everyone catch it as promoted by folks like Cummings) or the good one (having an effective mass vaccine ptogramme).

Edit: Actually, Marty, I'm sorry. I'm being grumpy and I'm directing it at you and that's unfair. I apologise. .

No worries - I didn't take it personally.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/27/uk-coronavirus-death-toll-passes-60000-official-figures-show

The UK has reached a 200 per day death count average weeks ahead of expectations with calls for a second national lockdown now growing stronger.

[Asura]

I really wish they'd do another graph on the gov't page of the current average mortality of the UK population vs. the average mortality, for that calendar day, graphed over the past ~5 years.

There are still too many people who are insisting that doctors are being too eager to slap a COVID label on every death where the dying person had a cough.

[Dogg Thang]

Does that sound likely though? We had those stories over here too and the medical community came straight out and explained how covid deaths are categorised and that theory does not remotely hold water. This would be akin to having someone get killed in a car crash and people saying that it shouldn't be noted as a car death because they had an underlying heart condition. It's just a nonsense attempt to undermine the reality of the situation, largely out of denial and desperation. Moronity, if there is such a word. Which there likely isn't.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2020/oct/28/uk-coronavirus-live-uk-lockdown-covid-death-toll-latest-updates

The Professor, whose modelling led to the first national lockdown, has said that Tier 2 and Tier 3 measures won't impact new case numbers and could lock us into high cases till Spring 2021.

The number of hospitalisations could double by the end of November

The Tories are fending off intensified demand for a Second National Lockdown.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/28/france-expected-to-impose-four-week-national-lockdown-covid

France is expected to announce it is entering a National Lockdown again



Really, the whole thing absolutely wipes out the argument about keeping everything open to protect the economy. It's akin to pouring gasoline on a fire whilst shouting to the trapped children the flames will be out any minute.

[SuperDanX]

I don’t understand the narrative around Christmas celebrations this year, can’t we just accept that we have to skip the usual celebrations this year? Is that too much to ask? The push to make sure we get to celebrate Christmas is completely out of whack.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep. It's the insistence that things should be normal that is preventing us from getting anywhere near normal. As Neon Ignition says, the whole thing just doesn't work. You can't carry on as normal and expect a normal economy in a pandemic situation.

[Hirst]

I think they are just trying to give people something to hope for so they don't top themselves, because the British winter is miserable enough as-is and there's nothing to look forward to for an extremely long period. They probably think false hope is better than none.

(I'm not that bothered about Christmas personally)

[Dogg Thang]

I don't know. I think false hope will only lead to one of two things: 1) crushing disappointment or 2) a giant rise in cases and deaths around the third week of January. Neither of those things are good. People need to be practical, not sold lies. That's just what I reckon. I think when this started if people had been real about the fact that we're talking years, people would have been much better prepared mentally for what is playing out.

[Asura]

I think they are just trying to give people something to hope for so they don't top themselves

"It'll be over by Christmas."

[Hirst]

Probably has more to do with how individual people process bad news more than anything else. I don't think the government are thinking of that at all though, just kicking it down the road to deal with later. I think there is no plan.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, I think you're spot on there.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I fully expect the government to allow us all to mingle and meet over Xmas. It makes them look kind.
'looks at us, we are giving you all Xmas!'
Of course it will mean a spike in deaths.

[Hirst]

I reckon they'll let you have Christmas if you're in Tier 1/2, but not if you're in Tier 3. They will then blame the subsequent spike on people in Tier 3 leaving their local areas against advice.