Omicron variant and the measures implemented in response to it

[bramling]

Mark Dolan from GBNews has his say on this proposed "circuit breaker" lockdown....

It’s farcical. People quite simply aren’t going to not mix indoors. And as for hospitality being outdoor only, is this our punishment for North Shropshire?

I have to say, as things stand at this moment I can’t see us avoiding some form of lockdown. The momentum seems to be behind it. I think the *only* thing stopping it now is the backbenchers, and I think Boris will eventually crack. Quite simply he’s too frit to be able to defend not doing it. Unless he can get Whitty to recommend no lockdown, so there’s a ready fall-guy to throw under the bus.

 

[Eyersey468]

If this pandemic has proven one thing - and it's proven many things - then it clearly demonstrates that when political conservatives say they believe in 'small government', they're lying.

In fact, conservatives are very interested in controlling your life, even though - as an individual - you're nothing to them. It's the fact that you're nothing to them that drives the reality, which is that 'small government' actually means "We won't pull our weight properly. We won't help you, in fact you're on your own".

Hence this new lockdown, which is too late to make any difference but it's also literally using extreme, once-in-a-lifetime measures as a dead cat. Because it's our fault, not theirs. Because of their pathological inability to take accountability. 'Oh dear, silly little public, what a burden you are to us... how dare you go and spread the nasty variant! Here's your punishment. Don't let it happen again.'

This is probably a little too far and tinhattish, but it's almost like they're punishing the public for voting them out in North Shropshire. [thom yorke voice] This is what you get when you mess with us...

What an absolute deluge of sewage this government is. A vindictive bunch of cowardly, miserly, hypocritical, amoral, vacuous [redacted].

I completely agree as well.

 

[yorksrob]

Sorry if this has been shared, but an interesting tweet here:
This is from the twitter of Sky political correspondent Sam Coates showing leaked whatsapp chats with around a 100 (I think) tory mps. I hope I went about this sharing thing the right way. Also cannot obviously verify this, but I just found it on twitter.

They need to be speaking to all the other MP's as well.

 

[Class 33]

It’s farcical. People quite simply aren’t going to not mix indoors.

Indeed. I think this Christmas and during the period of this so called 2 week(yea right!!) "circuit breaker" lockdown, a great deal many people will be mixing indoors. Many will be sticking to their intended Christmas plans of visiting/staying with family, after all they've already booked their train/coach tickets! Plus last year's Christmas was ruined because of Johnson announcing changes to rules at a few days notice. Many aren't going to stand for this nonsense again and ruining another Christmas.

As for "The rule of 6 outdoors" if that nonsense comes back too. Many were not sticking to that by the summer of last year!

The tide is very much turning now. The vast majority of the British public are absolutely sick of all these nonsense restrictions starting to come back again.

 

[yorkie]

Just because plans are being drawn up doesn't mean it will happen.

If they implement it and if it transpires that the medical experts and scientists in South Africa were right, they'll look rather silly indeed.

 

[bramling]

Just because plans are being drawn up doesn't mean it will happen.

If they implement it and if it transpires that the medical experts and scientists in South Africa were right, they'll look rather silly indeed.

In our current screwed-up world *anything* is possible. That’s why it’s, unfortunately, quite viable for us to get a lockdown simply “because other countries are doing it”.

I wouldn’t say it’s a certainty, but the way it’s now being plastered all over the media, and the rumours are getting louder, suggests this is the way we’re heading. The sweetener, I suspect, will be it won’t be a total “stay at home”.

Like an abusive relationship, we will be told how thankful we should be that we aren’t getting more, or “isn’t Boris wonderful for not locking you down on Xmas Day?”.

 

[brad465]

In our current screwed-up world *anything* is possible. That’s why it’s, unfortunately, quite viable for us to get a lockdown simply “because other countries are doing it”.

I wouldn’t say it’s a certainty, but the way it’s now being plastered all over the media, and the rumours are getting louder, suggests this is the way we’re heading. The sweetener, I suspect, will be it won’t be a total “stay at home”.

Like an abusive relationship, we will be told how thankful we should be that we aren’t getting more, or “isn’t Boris wonderful for not locking you down on Xmas Day?”.

“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” - C.S. Lewis

 

[bramling]

“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” - C.S. Lewis

I’m not sure the whole world is running towards a cliff, but Europe certainly is. And no doubt the leaders of Russia and China are watching with a calm smile.

 

[initiation]

The insanity of proposing a 'circuit breaker lockdown' is that the population have collective amnesia that we had a 4 week one last November to 'save Christmas'. Fat lot of good that did as we all emerged into tier 3 and then entered months of lockdown.

Half a year after the start of that circuit breaker lockdown it remained illegal for me to go into a friend or family member's house.

 

[Berliner]

The insanity of proposing a 'circuit breaker lockdown' is that the population have collective amnesia that we had a 4 week one last November to 'save Christmas'. Fat lot of good that did as we all emerged into tier 3 and then entered months of lockdown.

Half a year after the start of that circuit breaker lockdown it remained illegal for me to go into a friend or family member's house.

Well this is it. Not that I would support any kind of lockdown, but if they just didn't treat us like idiots then at least it would be easier to stomach. Saying it's going to be for 2 weeks when they and us all know it will drag out until at least Easter is just insulting to all our intelligence. I see the Dutch lockdown is going to be open ended too, with them announcing it will be until "at least" mid January. How it became acceptable for governments to act like this I'll never understand.

 

[Eyersey468]

Just because plans are being drawn up doesn't mean it will happen.

If they implement it and if it transpires that the medical experts and scientists in South Africa were right, they'll look rather silly indeed.

I don't trust them not to implement it, they have said one thing then done the opposite too many times.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Dec 2021 ==

In our current screwed-up world *anything* is possible. That’s why it’s, unfortunately, quite viable for us to get a lockdown simply “because other countries are doing it”.

I wouldn’t say it’s a certainty, but the way it’s now being plastered all over the media, and the rumours are getting louder, suggests this is the way we’re heading. The sweetener, I suspect, will be it won’t be a total “stay at home”.

Like an abusive relationship, we will be told how thankful we should be that we aren’t getting more, or “isn’t Boris wonderful for not locking you down on Xmas Day?”.

The insanity of proposing a 'circuit breaker lockdown' is that the population have collective amnesia that we had a 4 week one last November to 'save Christmas'. Fat lot of good that did as we all emerged into tier 3 and then entered months of lockdown.

Half a year after the start of that circuit breaker lockdown it remained illegal for me to go into a friend or family member's house.

Well this is it. Not that I would support any kind of lockdown, but if they just didn't treat us like idiots then at least it would be easier to stomach. Saying it's going to be for 2 weeks when they and us all know it will drag out until at least Easter is just insulting to all our intelligence. I see the Dutch lockdown is going to be open ended too, with them announcing it will be until "at least" mid January. How it became acceptable for governments to act like this I'll never understand.

Completely agree with all of this

 

[adc82140]

The lockdown in the Netherlands allows for indoor mixing at home. 2 others, except from Xmas and New year, when it's 4. Children don't count towards that number. For all the silliness of their lockdown, at least they acknowledge the unacceptable toll on mental health that a ban on household mixing brings.

In Western Australia, for a their faults (and there have been many) they have kept to their word and reopened, including international borders, now they have hit 90% vaccinated.

The problem here is uncertainty. Do they not realise how stressful that is?

 

[YorkshireBear]

The uncertainty is worst for me. Tickets for events bought as Christmas presents. Are plans with friends going to be cancelled. Will they stop me going to the office. It is just constant, irriversible proves not to be the case again.

 

[bramling]

A reasonable performance from Javid just now on Sky News, putting forward a reasonable case for why they're holding off on any lockdown. His performance is a lot better than we get from Johnson, it's just a shame he let himself down with that "so what - how about you show some respect to the NHS" tweet a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Bantamzen]

There’s an interesting exchange going on on Twitter with a SAGE member

https://twitter.com/grahammedley/status/1472243230213394434?s=21

Graham Medley is taking something of a beating on that thread. I wonder how long he will be in his job for?

Seriously though, this is exactly what a lot of us on here feared, that the statistics and modelling were being driven by policy and not the other way around.

I’m not sure the whole world is running towards a cliff, but Europe certainly is. And no doubt the leaders of Russia and China are watching with a calm smile.

Those countries will be rubbing their hands with glee, the rest of the world have given them the manual on how to shut us all down. It'll save them a fortune in nuclear weapon development....

 

[duncanp]

Not sure what to make of the twitter exchanges. SAGE being told to model only worst case outcomes??

This is an example of SAGE "modelling", taken from The Guardian:-

As well as the alarming scenarios above, Sage also modelled the impact of measures imposed under step 1 of the roadmap used last spring. If step 1 measures were imposed, the modelling suggested that infections could be limited to between 200,000 and a million a day. Hospitalisations could run at between 1,500 and 5,000 admissions a day and daily deaths would be 200 to 2,000.

The ranges for infections, hospitalisations and deaths here are huge, and are next to useless for informing government decision making unless there is some indication of what the most likely outcome is.

If there were a million infections per day, and the R number of Omicron is between 3 and 5 as has been reported, the outbreak would be over very quickly, as the virus would run out of people to infect within days.

It is plainly obvious that this "modelling" is designed to panic the government into implementing more restrictions than are actually needed, and the public into believing that these restrictions are necessary.

 

[Eyersey468]

This is an example of SAGE "modelling", taken from The Guardian:-



The ranges for infections, hospitalisations and deaths here are huge, and are next to useless for informing government decision making unless there is some indication of what the most likely outcome is.

If there were a million infections per day, and the R number of Omicron is between 3 and 5 as has been reported, the outbreak would be over very quickly, as the virus would run out of people to infect within days.

It is plainly obvious that this "modelling" is designed to panic the government into implementing more restrictions than are actually needed, and the public into believing that these restrictions are necessary.

This is the conclusion I have come to as well

 

[yorksrob]

I think that to an extent the scientists just don't understand that the public isn't prepared to put their lives on hold over this regularly. Maybe for Ebola, or something of that magnitude, but not this.

Another thing that irritates me mildly is that we always seem to get more of every varient than everywhere on the continent. Too much testing I suspect.

 

[duncanp]

This is the conclusion I have come to as well

The problem with closing indoor hospitality for two weeks in January is that, whilst those two weeks are traditionally quiet for pubs and restaurants and being closed wouldn't have much of an impact economically, the flip side of the coin is that by closing hospitality during this time it would havea correspondingly small impact on transmission of the virus.

The impact of measures is a product of how severe they are, and how long they are kept in place.

Having slightly less strict measures in place for a longer period of time will have more of an impact overall.

If Boris Johnson were to say, "right, that's it - pubs closed from 27th December until 9th January", everyone would carry on mixing indoors during that period, and then go out to the pub in greater numbers when they reopened.

 

[philosopher]

The problem with closing indoor hospitality for two weeks in January is that, whilst those two weeks are traditionally quiet for pubs and restaurants and being closed wouldn't have much of an impact economically, the flip side of the coin is that by closing hospitality during this time it would havea correspondingly small impact on transmission of the virus.

Most people will find too cold to sit outside in January anyway, even with patio heaters. I suspect if there is an indoor hospitality ban, most pubs and restaurants would not bother opening.

 

[Class 33]

Baci in February when Johnson announced his Roadmap out if lockdown he said "This is the final push out of lockdown". Since then we've gone back into restrictions with this mandatory face mask nonsense. It will be absolutely unacceptable if we go back into yet another full national lockdown which takes months to get out of again! We do NOT deserve being treated like this.

 

[Andrew1395]

It’s as much schools as hospitality venues that will drive transmission of the variant. In our friendship groups all the whats apppings are from people apologising that their teenage children have just tested positive. Wailing that Christmas is now off!

As the virus is as happy to infect 16 year olds as it is 60 year olds, with tens of thousands of secondary school age children over the last three weeks mixing in school, on school buses, trains, etc It should be no surprise that this cohort, least likely to be vaccinated let alone with a booster, have in the last ten days seeded the virus through their family and friendship groups and beyond to others they have interacted with.

Schools should be the next focus for a mass vaccination campaign.

 

[Eyersey468]

Baci in February when Johnson announced his Roadmap out if lockdown he said "This is the final push out of lockdown". Since then we've gone back into restrictions with this mandatory face mask nonsense. It will be absolutely unacceptable if we go back into yet another full national lockdown which takes months to get out of again! We do NOT deserve being treated like this.

Hear hear

 

[Tomo]

Seems like nonsense that we are going to such extreme measures to fight a less harmful variant. I have COVID at the moment and it's been no worse than a cold. It's actually annoying because if I had a cold as 'bad' as this I'd still be out and about

 

[Eyersey468]

Seems like nonsense that we are going to such extreme measures to fight a less harmful variant. I have COVID at the moment and it's been no worse than a cold. It's actually annoying because if I had a cold as 'bad' as this I'd still be out and about

I agree and think it's because the governments all seem to think only Covid matters

 

[Simon11]

Had a look at the covid data from South Africa, where cases appear to be dropping over the last few days, thus could have reached their peak.

Still no impact on deaths...


If this trend continues with Omicron, at what point will scientists and Government realise, appologise and allow us to live our lives again? There could be serious egg on their face soon....

 

[kez19]

Had a look at the covid data from South Africa, where cases appear to be dropping over the last few days, thus could have reached their peak.

Still no impact on deaths...


If this trend continues with Omicron, at what point will scientists and Government realise, appologise and allow us to live our lives again? There could be serious egg on their face soon....

I think the first should be the media to me they jumped first to then allow governments to react.

 

[Eyersey468]

Had a look at the covid data from South Africa, where cases appear to be dropping over the last few days, thus could have reached their peak.

Still no impact on deaths...


If this trend continues with Omicron, at what point will scientists and Government realise, appologise and allow us to live our lives again? There could be serious egg on their face soon....

I doubt the scientists, government or media will ever apologise, even if they did they wouldn't mean it

 

[Simon11]

I doubt the scientists, government or media will ever apologise, even if they did they wouldn't mean it

While it would never happen, imagine if they fined media organisation for their profits over December.....

 

[4-SUB 4732]

The scientists and Government now have to cause / create lockdown and such to save their own reputations. Instead of admitting how dreadful their models are, they need us to lockdown because “It would have been 1m cases a day if we didn’t”.

I have huge respect for these guys usually but Ferguson seemed to predict 90m UK deaths a day from bird flu and all the rest because he was pretty useless, and it’s obvious now the scientific community are enjoying the big pharma money for research and being a gob on a stick; as well as the prestige and power. They need to provide far more defined data, and they need to be far more honest. They can’t throw the coin in the air and shout heads and tails and then be happy they got the right result every time which is what they are doing.