Lifting of all restrictions

There’s a big difference between expressing a concern that something might happen and how you’ve phrased your OP. A “sense” is an unsubstantiated opinion, and the link you’ve posted doesn’t substantiate your opinion. I’m simply providing a link to the best evidence and modelling available to us.

It remains the case that SAGE believe the 4 tests for reopening have been met, one of which is that the NHS won’t be overwhelmed and another is that there are no variants of concern that could evade immunity. I choose to trust their view rather than form an alternative opinion based on speculation.

On variants, which you say is your main concern, of the thousands of mutations that have occurred, not one has resulted in a variant that renders the vaccines ineffective. Even if one occurred, steps have been taken to rapidly produce booster shots effective against variants that may arise.
It’s also the case that approximately 90% of the population already has antibodies, and the number of vaccines being administered a day is dropping significantly. The risk of a variant arising won’t substantially reduce through the vaccine programme only - natural infection is going to have to get us to the herd immunity threshold. This may be only a few weeks away.

 

Whitty already conditioning us for what is coming.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/chris-whitty-warns-england-could-24546061

 

It shows that there was disruption of anaesthetic and peri-operative services as a consequence of the need for anaesthetists to support increased critical care demand. That’s all.

I don’t dispute that. It’s widely reported that many elective surgeries were cancelled. However, one part of the NHS having to cancel planned surgeries is not evidence that the NHS was overwhelmed.

When the tests were set, overwhelmed meant the NHS being incapable of treating critical COVID patients. It was the concern that COVID patients may need to be turned away as the healthcare system did not have the surge capacity to treat them (as was the case in India). It was why the Nightingales were opened. It’s why we were told to protect the NHS. Your definition of overwhelmed is very different.

 

You’re making a case for not opening up, which impacts the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. If you don’t want people to disagree, don’t post it on a public forum. I’ll “move along” though, as clearly you don’t.

 

It was because it's inadequate and has been failing for years. It gets overwhelmed practically every winter with people dying in hospital corridors because there are no beds. People waiting month and months for vital surgery etc. Collectively we've turned a blind eye to it.
As soon as it started to fail due to covid though we are up in arms and standing outside clapping for the nurses.

 

You’ve said it’s going to be an “inevitable disaster”, not based on “logic or science”, that the peak is going to be “much much higher”, that hospitals might be overwhelmed, a high number of deaths, and there’s the perfect conditions for a vaccine resistant variant. If anything is going to stress people out, it’s alarmist posts like that.

I’ve attempted to explain the logic and I’ve posted links to the science that the decision is based on so people can read for themselves. Don’t try and make out that I’m attacking you. If you don’t want debate, don’t post on the BBS.

 

I would imagine (purely speculatively) that the biggest extra issue Covid has caused the NHS is the need to isolate causing Staff shortages.

 

Every country so far that has dropped restrictions without getting cases to a very low level (Israel, Netherlands, Denmark iirc) has had to reintroduce them after a significant rise in cases. Those countries that got cases down to zero (or close to it), such as Iceland or New Zealand, only reintroduce measures when there is an outbreak - and in those cases they can trace them back to all that might be affected.

As we are already seeing, a rise in cases is followed by an increase in hospital admissions, ICU admissions and death. While the rate of conversion from cases to hospital to death is now lower than before, yesterday was the 20th highest recorded number of cases in the UK since the start of the pandemic. Hospitals in Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester (among others) are already canceling elective or non-critical surgeries and reopening Covid ICU wards to cope. Around half of hospital admissions now are under 50 - including a number of pregnant women - and while these are much less likely to die, they are taking up ambulance and hospital resources that could be better used to reduce the waiting lists.

Now, I personally don't think the infection rates are going to shoot up. I think the rate of growth will slow now that schools are finished and we might get up to 60-70,000 cases per day by the end of August. Then I think it will increase rapidly as kids/students return - following a similar pattern to last year but from a far higher starting point. At which point parts of the NHS will collapse in ways that lead to unnecessary deaths.

I also think the decision was political rather than based on science. This isn't the first time that the government have got so entangled into "group think" that they can't look at other options. Why not delay while September and use the next two months to run a public health campaign to vaccinate the remaining unvaccinated? - use social media influencers, bribery (free beer when you are double-jabbed!) or other ways to persuade people. They also need to seriously look at vaccinating teenagers, but there are rumours of vaccine supply shortages rather than reluctance being at least part of the problem...

 

fair comment but my point was not about absorption through skin... If you handle cash with Covid virus on your hands that transfers to the cash and the subsequent handler ends up with it on his/her skin. As regards masks ultimately virus traces can end up on the outside and expecting someone not to touch their face or mask to adjust if they are wearing it for hours on end (think of checkout staff passing hundreds of items through the scanner ) You can end up with virus on shopping bag handles, trolley, car keys, car door handles even if , like me you use alcohol sanitiser before setting off home to wipe steering whell handbrake, gear lever etc.
I agree that masks reduce the number of surfaces where the virus could 'rest' but in reality it only takes one or two people in a shopping mall for example to contaminate, for example a handrail on an escalator. I still maintain you are far more likely to contract the virus through surface contact rather than airborne especially if you maintain safe distance from others for prolonged periods. That said I cannot find any research confirming either way and am surprised they STILL have no accurate data re airborne vs surface contact figure or accurate data on how long the virus can survive on different surfaces/different temperatures and humidity.

 

I agree regarding at least offering the vaccine to teenagers. It would really help us get to the herd immunity threshold and prevent unnecessary natural infection (much of which would be amongst that age group). However, there’s huge resistance to it from some.

I think the difference between us and the Netherlands is the proportion of the population with antibodies. A few weeks ago it was estimated that 90% of the adult population had antibodies, which means we’re pretty close to the HIT. However, the vaccination programme is slowing, and it’s highly unlikely we’ll get there through vaccination alone. In Whitty’s words, delaying the reopening to increase vaccination rates now only has a “marginal benefit”.

At some point soon, we will reach the HIT and cases will start to decline. The problem is that it’s highly uncertain when we’ll get there. However, the modelling suggests we should get there before we get into significant trouble.

I don’t think there will be a resurgence when kids go back, as based on the current trajectory of the epidemic I think we’ll pretty much be at the HIT by that time. Whilst there may be outbreaks in schools, they should be contained to schools.

The modelling by Warwick suggests the same. The only scenarios where there are multiple peaks are where the first peak is quite low, which doesn’t look likely.