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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

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It's worth remembering some countries don't actually allow visitors from the UK or they require mandatory quarantine in an approved facility. For example, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand are on the green list but to all intents and purposes cannot be visited for a holiday.
 
Alsty said:
It's worth remembering some countries don't actually allow visitors from the UK or they require mandatory quarantine in an approved facility. For example, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand are on the green list but to all intents and purposes cannot be visited for a holiday.
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And most of the rest are British overseas territories which aren't really tourist destinations and are not easily accessible from the UK.
 
Lovely second jab today, no queue, brief wait for the actual shot.
Then went shopping in sunny Blackburn, the town with the highest rates in the country.
Large numbers not in masks, groups of six or seven with one trolley in the supermarket, security staff arguing amongst themselves at the entrance.
Oh, and as it is the worst place for covid in the country...lets put a big funfair in the park on the edge of town!
 
I'm sure people said viruses were meant to evolve over time to become less dangerous. What with the Indian variant and now the Nepalese mutation, that doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon. All I see are continually shifting goalposts, a finish line that can never be reached.

Are we forever going to be on the back foot with this virus? Are we forever going to be imposing social restrictions?
 
GaryH said:
Today the government published their technical findings on the Delta (Indian) variant more dominant in the U.K. and it’s not good news

https://assets.publishing.service.g...k_assessment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_DELTA.pdf

In summary:

it’s more transmissible (easier to spread)
It results in 2.5 times higher risk of hospitalisation
And it does evade vaccines to some extent particularly with one dose

Over 5,000 cases today as well
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It should be noted that the confidence in the possibility that it increases risk of hospitalisation is low, and PHE said to the BBC yesterday that they only have a small set of data to work on at present.

We were told last year that the Kent (now Alpha) variant was more deadly but that went very quiet very quickly and as far as I am aware an increase death rate in the winter wave was not reported?

Alsty said:
I'm sure people said viruses were meant to evolve over time to become less dangerous. What with the Indian variant and now the Nepalese mutation, that doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon. All I see are continually shifting goalposts, a finish line that can never be reached.

Are we forever going to be on the back foot with this virus? Are we forever going to be imposing social restrictions?
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I was thinking that last night. Obviously there are many many mutations of the virus, and most of these will never come to light. It it mutates to become less transmissible then it is going to be outfought by a mutation that is more tranmissible, so it fizzles out.

I've seen it said in various places, on here and elsewhere, that viruses often mutate to become less dangerous over time as it is not in their interest to kill the host. If we had a highly transmissible variant that led to a much milder illness then we wouldn't have a problem, but every mutatation at the moment just seems to be worse than the last one.

EDIT:

I'd also like to add that if you do look at the 'Cases by specimen date age demographics - Above and below 60' charts on the UK Cornonavirus dashboard for local authority areas that have seen a surge due to the delta variant, infection rates in the over 60s have behaved substatially differently to infection rates in the under 60s and this difference was nowhere near as pronounced in pre-vaccine peaks.

Some examples:
That can only be encouraging. Cases were always going to rise when indoor mixing was allowed but there seems to be significanly less impact on age groups were double vaccination is more prevalent.
 
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Alsty said:
I'm sure people said viruses were meant to evolve over time to become less dangerous. What with the Indian variant and now the Nepalese mutation, that doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon. All I see are continually shifting goalposts, a finish line that can never be reached.

Are we forever going to be on the back foot with this virus? Are we forever going to be imposing social restrictions?
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Indeed that’s the theory, but it could also go through a period of being more deadly, who knows. And if the virus is made in a lab and not natural then who knows what it’s will do.

However, it does look like vaccines are having a considerable impact, and once the majority of people have been vaccinated then we should go about our business as usual.

As mentioned above, it will change all the time like the flu, we can’t live our lives locked up indoors with no social contact. Business will collapse, the country will be in ruin and people’s mental health will go with it.

There has to be a point at which we have to accept the risk, trust in the vaccines and try and go about life as normal again.
 
I’m really scared about COVID again, I’ll admit. With the way things are going with the Delta variant, it almost feels like December all over again, when the Alpha variant came along. I’m hearing scientists starting to say that we’ll be in full lockdown again before too long, and as much as we have the vaccines, they’re apparently not very effective against the Delta variant, and the percentage of the population fully vaccinated is still too low to stop the Delta variant from causing major issues. Add to that that the Delta variant apparently doubles the risk of hospitalisation, and things are starting to feel like December all over again.

With the virus seemingly throwing up a curveball every time we try and open up, would it be worth just staying in lockdown forever, and not ever trying to go back to how we were before? I want to move into step 4 just as much as everyone else does, but are we feasibly ever going to be able to without causing major problems on the virus front? Should we just give up and accept what we have now as the new status quo? Or are my worries unfounded?
 
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Matt N said:
I’m really scared about COVID again, I’ll admit. With the way things are going with the Delta variant, it almost feels like December all over again, when the Alpha variant came along. I’m hearing scientists starting to say that we’ll be in full lockdown again before too long, and as much as we have the vaccines, they’re apparently not very effective against the Delta variant, and the percentage of the population fully vaccinated is still too low to stop the Delta variant from causing major issues. Add to that that the Delta variant apparently doubles the risk of hospitalisation, and things are starting to feel like December all over again.

With the virus seemingly throwing up a curveball every time we try and open up, would it be worth just staying in lockdown forever, and not ever trying to go back to how we were before? I want to move into step 4 just as much as everyone else does, but are we feasibly ever going to be able to without causing major problems on the virus front? Should we just give up and accept what we have now as the new status quo? Or are my worries unfounded?
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At somepoint things will just have to open up, most likely once everyone has had both vaccine doses now.

Yes we may get new varients but once everyone is vaccinated we are at a much better baseline.

Going forward it will be very dependant on people who feel ill caring about their friends, relatives and colleagues more. People will need to stay at home if they feel ill (not matter what the illness might be) and potentially wear a mask if they feel a little ill (like cold symptoms). On the plus side if people do stay at home when ill more we should see a lot less transmission of colds and flu too.
 
Matt N said:
I’m really scared about COVID again, I’ll admit. With the way things are going with the Delta variant, it almost feels like December all over again, when the Alpha variant came along. I’m hearing scientists starting to say that we’ll be in full lockdown again before too long, and as much as we have the vaccines, they’re apparently not very effective against the Delta variant, and the percentage of the population fully vaccinated is still too low to stop the Delta variant from causing major issues. Add to that that the Delta variant apparently doubles the risk of hospitalisation, and things are starting to feel like December all over again.

With the virus seemingly throwing up a curveball every time we try and open up, would it be worth just staying in lockdown forever, and not ever trying to go back to how we were before? I want to move into step 4 just as much as everyone else does, but are we feasibly ever going to be able to without causing major problems on the virus front? Should we just give up and accept what we have now as the new status quo? Or are my worries unfounded?
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We are now in a lot better place. We have the vaccine roll out, the Dr's and Scientist now have a better understanding of the virus as well they now know the best way to treat it.

If you have both doses of the vaccine, you should be fine especially if you are young and healthy. The virus mainly affects the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.

As a kid, I myself have had all the childhood diseases going around and I'm still here to tell you. We are all in this together. This will pass, even if the virus don't go away, we will learn to live with it, just like we do with the flu which has killed many people in the past. Apparently we currently have less daily death through covid than what we do through other diseased like heart and cancer. We just need to ride this one out and wait to see what happens. In the mean time, stay safe and follow the guidelines.
 
The biggest priority is getting the NHS back to some sort of normality. Too many people have had treatments cancelled or postponed due to Covid and that in itself has cost too many lives.

The borders should've been shut throughout this crisis and these people whinging about not being able to go on holiday need to have a reality check.

Like many things, many people dont seem to understand the seriousness of a situation until it affects them.
 
I don’t think there will be another lockdown. The country can’t afford it and I don’t think the public would do it a a third time.
 
Question I have is why is it whenever we start to ease restrictions there just so happens to be some other variant of the virus popping up out of nowhere such as the Kent one in the winter and now this Indian one? Can't be all just some crazy coincidence when how it all seems timed like this, right?
 
QTXAdsy said:
Question I have is why is it whenever we start to ease restrictions there just so happens to be some other variant of the virus popping up out of nowhere such as the Kent one in the winter and now this Indian one? Can't be all just some crazy coincidence when how it all seems timed like this, right?
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It does seem strange, I have to admit.
 
If we’re talking from a UK perspective, it’s probably something to do with how easing restrictions means that there’s greater mixing, therefore these variants, both foreign and domestic, have greater chance to get themselves into society.

You might remember that back during the third lockdown earlier this year, the South Africa variant actually started spreading in the community, and a lot of scientists were very concerned back then, but ultimately, the surge testing procedure was able to stop it from escalating into a crisis.

So I don’t think the presence of new variants in the community in itself is generated by us opening up, but the new variants escalating to larger numbers is likely caused by increased person-to-person contact as a result of eased restrictions.
 
Matt N said:
I’m really scared about COVID again, I’ll admit. With the way things are going with the Delta variant, it almost feels like December all over again, when the Alpha variant came along. I’m hearing scientists starting to say that we’ll be in full lockdown again before too long, and as much as we have the vaccines, they’re apparently not very effective against the Delta variant, and the percentage of the population fully vaccinated is still too low to stop the Delta variant from causing major issues. Add to that that the Delta variant apparently doubles the risk of hospitalisation, and things are starting to feel like December all over again.

With the virus seemingly throwing up a curveball every time we try and open up, would it be worth just staying in lockdown forever, and not ever trying to go back to how we were before? I want to move into step 4 just as much as everyone else does, but are we feasibly ever going to be able to without causing major problems on the virus front? Should we just give up and accept what we have now as the new status quo? Or are my worries unfounded?
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I'm no scientist, but please remember that some of these headlines are designed to scare you because they push Newspapers/mouse clicks/viewing numbers. This has to be looked at on balance. As has been posted above, the boogie man isn't around every corner when you look at hard data.

I'm not playing down concerns, especially with mutations, but there's always going to be someone somewhere pleading for caution. So should there be as well. It's a time to not be complacent like earlier in the pandemic, but also not cut our noses off due to fear.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
 
Brad97 said:
It's also worth noting that hospitalisations and deaths remain low despite the increase in cases. That shows that the vaccines are working.
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Those are the 2 things to keep an eye on. Cases will probably sky rocket again especially if/when they go to the next level which is almost back to normal. The vaccines don't stop you from catching covid.

The only 2 figures that really matter are hospitalisations and deaths.

We are going to have to accept some ongoing deaths but as long as hospitals don't get over run and the death rate stays low (maybe no more than daily double digits) then I think we are going to have to get on with life.

Sent from my ELS-NX9 using Tapatalk
 
QTXAdsy said:
Question I have is why is it whenever we start to ease restrictions there just so happens to be some other variant of the virus popping up out of nowhere such as the Kent one in the winter and now this Indian one? Can't be all just some crazy coincidence when how it all seems timed like this, right?
Click to expand...
Viruses need transmission to mutate
 
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