I will say this, scientists should not be making press conferences or interviews in the press, that’s not their job.
There have been several occasions when they have been found out, Whittey was hauled in front of the parliamentary committee for using out of date figures when persuading BJ to start the second lockdown.
As for hospitals filling up with COVID patients I simply don’t believe it, the released data doesn’t back that up.
On face masks I will leave it at this, feel free to wear one but I won’t be for the simple reason every time I wear one all day I have a sore throat for 2 days after, it’s not healthy to breath in your own exhaust all day.
After the 19th I'm not going to wear my exemption card but will keep it on me just in case. My worry though is as masks won't be law neither will exemptions, so it might be difficult for me.
Quick, stop the relaxing of the restrictions and get the masks back on!!!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/long-covid-symptom-erectile-dysfunction-b1879578.html
The right wing press made a big song and dance because a week old model was used in error by Chris Whitty, end of the day as he predicted the second wave hit hard even with a week old model being used instead of the more up to date one. I’m not saying these people are infallible but they are not lying or twisting the truth.
You can believe all you want around hospital admissions, Craig has outlined the case in his above post fantastically. Just because you don’t believe it doesn’t make it stop, we have reassigned more wards to Covid and preparing to convert operating theatres into ICU’s again. You can choose to believe that or you can call me a liar, either way reality won’t change.
Now we might not have such an issue if we hadn’t had 11 years of Tory underfunding but that’s a whole different argument.
The graph snippet Craig used is misleading as it makes it look like hospitalisations are the same as before and they aren’t, I’m not tech savvy enough to post it here but if you look at the government dashboard the line is hardly moving up.
I was certainly not calling you liar Dave, I’m sure hospital planning is in full swing.
I have a friend who is a ICU nurse in the North West, I’m not going to embarrass him by saying what hospital but it’s one of the bigger ones, I was speaking with him over the weekend and he is not stressed about the current situation, that’s good enough for me.
Craig went to a lot of trouble to make a solid argument so fair play, we just have to be careful when using graphs and percentages when actual figures are so low.
The graph snippet Craig used is misleading as it makes it look like hospitalisations are the same as before and they aren’t, I’m not tech savvy enough to post it here but if you look at the government dashboard the line is hardly moving up.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
And the point remains the vast majority of hospitalisations (not all obviously) are non fully vaccinated.
There is a lot of noise and name calling again today in the left wing press, people who won’t wear masks are stupid / thick / selfish, exactly the same language as before and after the Brexit vote, one day they will learn.
Engage and make a balanced argument people might listen, name call and belittle people and they just do what’s best for them.
Given that the vast majority of pensioners are Conservative voters, pensioners' vulnerability to disease and past desire for lockdowns, it will be interesting to see at what point the government will re-introduce restrictions for electoral reasons.
The isolation rule extending to the 18th of august is a disaster waiting to happen. And like all bad decisions the government is blaming scientists….
As I say I’m not against the reopening, it has to happen the virus isn’t going away. I think not changing the isolation rules on the 19th and getting rid of masks in shops and transport is however shortsighted.
I think the date makes sense when you think that that will be around the time all adults would of been able to access 2 vaccines for the first time.
That seems fair however the consequences we’re not thought through properly so now everyone will be deleting the COVID app on the 19th July presuming that’s “freedom day”.
If you don’t need it to check into a pub why would you risk getting pinged by it?
I haven’t worked it out to the hour like you have Craig but that will be reason the government give I can see it now.
I think the date makes sense when you think thatthat will be around the time all adultsthe vast majority of the Conservative’s voter base would of been able to access 2 vaccines for the first time.
The whole track and trace is useless not just the app. People will soon work out to stop getting tested if it means they can go on holiday.
19th July? Sorry I meant 16th August, wasn’t that the date for not needing to isolate if you have been jabbed twice?
That will certainly be fairly close to the 8 weeks from when all 18 year olds could first get a jab.
Ahh sorry if you’re talking about the 16th August, then yes the date generally makes sense for a rule change for the double vaccinated to ensure as many people as possible have access to two vaccinations. However, my point still stands on the fact that we have that 6 week gap where everyone still needs to self isolate, yet we’ve left pretty much zero mitigation measures in place. I feel we’d have been far better keeping something in place to minimise what could potentially be a shed load of people who are key workers or working in those sectors that are having a “big reopening” in having to self isolate. The hospitality industry bodies are having the same concerns, especially since they’re already struggling to find enough staff. Having too many staff self isolating has a real potential to destroy what are already extremely fragile businesses.