There was over 930 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours across the UK. :o

 

Case numbers are flying up and deaths are creeping back up as well.

 

We're actually having more deaths and hospital admissions than we did last summer, and accelerating towards the January peak very quickly (in terms of cases and admissions) which is extremely concerning. Finding it hard to stay positive at this point.

There was over 930 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours across the UK. :o

 

Case numbers are flying up and deaths are creeping back up as well.

 

We're actually having more deaths and hospital admissions than we did last summer, and accelerating towards the January peak very quickly (in terms of cases and admissions) which is extremely concerning. Finding it hard to stay positive at this point.

 

It’s not a good situation. The only light at the end of the tunnel is that covid rates are low in people who have been vaccinated. Most of the new cases are in young people and those who haven’t been double jabbed. That’s why I think it was a big mistake to ease all restrictions so soon when just over 50% of the population are fully vaccinated. Unfortunately this time around, cases will continue to increase as there are no restrictions to bring them down.

There was over 930 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours across the UK. :o

 

Case numbers are flying up and deaths are creeping back up as well.

 

We're actually having more deaths and hospital admissions than we did last summer, and accelerating towards the January peak very quickly (in terms of cases and admissions) which is extremely concerning. Finding it hard to stay positive at this point.

 

Deaths are OK at the moment, without wanting to sound like a morbib bast*rd, people are going to die. I know how hard grief is and losing people you love, it's awful but as long as case the numbers are not 500+ and causing a massive excess then I don't think it's too bad. Of course it's sad all the same, but I don't know what else can be done apart from locking us all down..

 

Inevitably there will be some further restrictions to come in September, I can see it now, the Government will do a massive U-turn on masks and WFH where possible. Cases are going to go up to 100,000 per day when the nightclubs open. Vaccinations don't stop people from catching it that's important to remember too. But we're still 6-8 weeks away from having 90% of the adult population fully jabbed. There's deffo a conversation that needs to be had about vaccinating teenagers too, otherwise we're going to struggle to get to that herd immunity level.

Deaths are OK at the moment, without wanting to sound like a morbib bast*rd, people are going to die. I know how hard grief is and losing people you love, it's awful but as long as case the numbers are not 500+ and causing a massive excess then I don't think it's too bad. Of course it's sad all the same, but I don't know what else can be done apart from locking us all down..

 

Inevitably there will be some further restrictions to come in September, I can see it now, the Government will do a massive U-turn on masks and WFH where possible. Cases are going to go up to 100,000 per day when the nightclubs open. Vaccinations don't stop people from catching it that's important to remember too. But we're still 6-8 weeks away from having 90% of the adult population fully jabbed. There's deffo a conversation that needs to be had about vaccinating teenagers too, otherwise we're going to struggle to get to that herd immunity level.

 

68 deaths today and 48k of new cases. While the deaths are not high in comparison with the peak of the last wave, I can’t help but feel the current situation could have been avoided if this lousy government had made better decisions. They have clearly not learned from their previous mistakes and those figures will rise in the coming weeks due to the impact of unlocking everything and removing all restrictions. No other country is going down this route and it’s been heavily criticised by health experts and the WHO.

Edited July 15, 20214 yr by slowdown73

68 deaths today and 48k of new cases. While the deaths are not high in comparison with the peak of the last wave, I can’t help but feel the current situation could have been avoided if this lousy government had made better decisions. They have clearly not learned from their previous mistakes and those figures will rise in the coming weeks due to the impact of unlocking everything and removing all restrictions. No other country is going down this route and it’s been heavily criticised by health experts and the WHO.

 

Not saying the Government haven't made bad decisions as they certainly have, but I genuinely don't know what else they can do? I disagree with the mask wearing not being mandated and forcing people back to work. But I genuinely don't know what else the Government can do without keeping restrictions on us, which imo would cause this wave to be pushed back until the autumn, so even worse. Businesses are clearly not too far away from going bust- then there's the whole ripple effect. Europe is entering the 4th wave, it's a dammed if you, dammed if you don't.

 

Think the bigger problem here is while the vaccine is clearly effective, it's not enough to give us herd immunity from the Delta variant. So the Government are going ahead with exit wave strategy thinking the NHS can cope - I'm not convinced of this purely down to years of mis-management of the NHS from the Government. But that's clearly their strategy here.

 

The deaths are beginning to creep up from 50 yday to 68 today (back to the early April averages) but with the cases on 30-40k a day for the past week I hope it doesn’t get worse in the coming weeks with the lag effect.

Not saying the Government haven't made bad decisions as they certainly have, but I genuinely don't know what else they can do? I disagree with the mask wearing not being mandated and forcing people back to work. But I genuinely don't know what else the Government can do without keeping restrictions on us, which imo would cause this wave to be pushed back until the autumn, so even worse. Businesses are clearly not too far away from going bust- then there's the whole ripple effect. Europe is entering the 4th wave, it's a dammed if you, dammed if you don't.

 

Think the bigger problem here is while the vaccine is clearly effective, it's not enough to give us herd immunity from the Delta variant. So the Government are going ahead with exit wave strategy thinking the NHS can cope - I'm not convinced of this purely down to years of mis-management of the NHS from the Government. But that's clearly their strategy here.

The strategy should be to take steps on a more gradual basis until you get strong vax coverage over all approved age groups. The problem is that the gov has just gone from 0 to 300 mph in the blink of an eye. It risks a vax escape variant. Keeping masks, keeping high risk activities like clubs on pause, making folks test/vax for freedom is a smarter route.

 

Theres a line to walk between controlling the rona to prevent variants and allowing freedoms. The UK is just abandoning all pretence of control to stroke the ego of Boris. It’s dangerous and reckless.

 

4th wave starting in Europe but looks like starting from a stronger point than the UK did back in April. (45-50% full vax and 60+% part) so in theory it shouldn’t be quite as bad. Plus there’s a lot of control measures still in place across the EU so we shall see how they hold up. I’m hopeful our exit wave ain’t so good

The strategy should be to take steps on a more gradual basis until you get strong vax coverage over all approved age groups. The problem is that the gov has just gone from 0 to 300 mph in the blink of an eye. It risks a vax escape variant. Keeping masks, keeping high risk activities like clubs on pause, making folks test/vax for freedom is a smarter route.

 

Theres a line to walk between controlling the rona to prevent variants and allowing freedoms. The UK is just abandoning all pretence of control to stroke the ego of Boris. It’s dangerous and reckless.

 

4th wave starting in Europe but looks like starting from a stronger point than the UK did back in April. (45-50% full vax and 60+% part) so in theory it shouldn’t be quite as bad. Plus there’s a lot of control measures still in place across the EU so we shall see how they hold up. I’m hopeful our exit wave ain’t so good

 

We're never gonna get to a strong enough vaccine coverage though from what the science seems to be saying. Pushing back restrictions just means we push back an exit/4th wave until September/October time.

 

Either we have an massive exit wave, we keep restrictions going for some time, or we tweak the vaccines to be 90% efficent against the Delta variant. Just don't think we can live in fear of the variants that may or may not happen. I'm no scientist, but suspect we are over the worst of this although the pressure on the NHS for the next 8 months is going to be rough. Clear to me that "normality" isn't going to happen until next spring.

 

There was something in the Guardian I think today which Johnson is taking away restrictions as he knows he's done the moment he has to start leaning on labout to pass through legislation for Covid, which sounds about right. Anyone with half a brain knows masks are coming back in September.

Not saying the Government haven't made bad decisions as they certainly have, but I genuinely don't know what else they can do? I disagree with the mask wearing not being mandated and forcing people back to work. But I genuinely don't know what else the Government can do without keeping restrictions on us, which imo would cause this wave to be pushed back until the autumn, so even worse. Businesses are clearly not too far away from going bust- then there's the whole ripple effect. Europe is entering the 4th wave, it's a dammed if you, dammed if you don't.

 

Think the bigger problem here is while the vaccine is clearly effective, it's not enough to give us herd immunity from the Delta variant. So the Government are going ahead with exit wave strategy thinking the NHS can cope - I'm not convinced of this purely down to years of mis-management of the NHS from the Government. But that's clearly their strategy here.

 

The government could have done a lot more. Unfortunately, the reality is that we will have to continue living with some form of restrictions for the foreseeable future and I suspect further restrictions will be required again by the autumn time. For a start, there needs to be an effective track and trace system. Continued mandatory mask wearing and social distancing in all public places - this isn’t much to ask in the current climate. Any further lifting of restrictions should only have been done when all adults were fully vaccinated and not while cases are rising. More support is needed for businesses who are unable to open instead of pulling the plug and some additional measures in high risk areas. The rules are confusing and should be aligned between the four nations.

Edited July 15, 20214 yr by slowdown73

We're never gonna get to a strong enough vaccine coverage though from what the science seems to be saying. Pushing back restrictions just means we push back an exit/4th wave until September/October time.

 

Either we have an massive exit wave, we keep restrictions going for some time, or we tweak the vaccines to be 90% efficent against the Delta variant. Just don't think we can live in fear of the variants that may or may not happen. I'm no scientist, but suspect we are over the worst of this although the pressure on the NHS for the next 8 months is going to be rough. Clear to me that "normality" isn't going to happen until next spring.

 

There was something in the Guardian I think today which Johnson is taking away restrictions as he knows he's done the moment he has to start leaning on labout to pass through legislation for Covid, which sounds about right. Anyone with half a brain knows masks are coming back in September.

 

The exit wave would have been much smaller though if they had waited until all adults were fully vaccinated before pressing ahead with reopening and continued with some mitigation measures. I don’t think we’re over this by a long shot and if we get a more dangerous variant come along due to rising cases then that could set us back significantly.

Edited July 15, 20214 yr by slowdown73

The strategy should be to take steps on a more gradual basis until you get strong vax coverage over all approved age groups. The problem is that the gov has just gone from 0 to 300 mph in the blink of an eye. It risks a vax escape variant. Keeping masks, keeping high risk activities like clubs on pause, making folks test/vax for freedom is a smarter route.

 

Theres a line to walk between controlling the rona to prevent variants and allowing freedoms. The UK is just abandoning all pretence of control to stroke the ego of Boris. It’s dangerous and reckless.

 

4th wave starting in Europe but looks like starting from a stronger point than the UK did back in April. (45-50% full vax and 60+% part) so in theory it shouldn’t be quite as bad. Plus there’s a lot of control measures still in place across the EU so we shall see how they hold up. I’m hopeful our exit wave ain’t so good

 

Yes, fully agree with your comments. Johnson is an idiot and his government are completely incompetent. They need to be held to account for all their failures over the managing of the pandemic!

Edited July 15, 20214 yr by slowdown73

The government could have done a lot more. Unfortunately, the reality is that we will have to continue living with some form of restrictions for the foreseeable future and I suspect further restrictions will be required again by the autumn time. For a start, there needs to be an effective track and trace system. Continued mandatory mask wearing and social distancing in all public places - this isn’t much to ask in the current climate. Any further lifting of restrictions should only have been done when all adults were fully vaccinated and not while cases are rising. More support is needed for businesses who are unable to open instead of pulling the plug and some additional measures in high risk areas. The rules are confusing and should be aligned between the four nations.

 

But we're only going to get 90% of adults jabbed and that's not until September. So at that points schools and unis go back and we unlock - that's also a recipe for disaster. I don't think there is a perfect time to unlock restrictions, it's either now or never as we push things back too much in to the autumn, at least this way we have a vaccine and immunity wall. It's not ideal and I fully agree about the masks and track & trace. We're also seeing an effevt of people mixing more and more respiratory viruses that are not covid too circulating around the general population.

 

 

The exit wave would have been much smaller though if they had waited until all adults were fully vaccinated before pressing ahead with reopening and continued with some mitigation measures. I don’t think we’re over this by a long shot and if we get a more dangerous variant come along due to rising cases then that could set us back significantly.

 

Hard to say, personally I think any exit wave that happens anywhere is going to be significant. Got to remember Delta has barely taken hold of Europe and USA yet. The data out of Israel and Malta is not good with high vaccine coverage. The vaccines are effective, but they're not good enough right now to get us out of the pandemic. Hence why I agree it's far from over, but I do think we're over the worst.

Look, we're treating this as if it means "we've all got to get herd immunity to carry on" as if that's the only solution. That's just wishful thinking. A more realistic attitude is that we may have to change behaviour on a long-term basis because it's not flu and it's never going to go away, and it could just as easily get much much worse.

 

Oh, and for young people thinking "I'm alright jack" and preferring to not get vaccinated when there's a very very small chance of dying from a vaccine, here's some figures showing Covid actually is much more risky to your ongoing health, with serious organ damage:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57840825

 

It increases with age, but it's not zero at any age. It's your own body attacking your own lungs and kidneys to get at the Covid.

 

I really don't see this playing out well at all. If the media were doing investigative journalism and following up on people of all ages who'd had Covid then people might have a more sensible and balanced approach to the disease and the future. Nobody wants to live indoors for the rest of their life, but letting it go rife is just inviting a serious mutation that is immune to current vaccines, or one that attacks everyone of all ages equally.

 

As I keep saying, and I'll keep saying it, it's only 100 years since there was a global pandemic that targeted young healthy people - older people had some resistance from previous related strains. And no that doesn't mean we all need to catch it to stop dying of future strains, there are no guarantees with disease, all living creatures are engaged in ongoing battles with all diseases. HIV killed millions, and it required behaviour changes until the medical establishment managed to start saving lives - but "saving lives" is still on the proviso that it can leave you with long-term health problems that affect your enjoyment of life and what you can do. Nobody likes changing what they want to keep doing, but if you have the information, and choose one risky route that's your choice and you accept the consequences, whatever they are, both to you as an individual and to everyone else. That's the route Johnson and his fellow rich tosspots have chosen, and he's responsible for whatever happens next. You know, the bloke who was in hospital seriously ill from shaking hands with Covid patients in hospital and offering to get jabbed with Covid on TV. This is the man who you are taking advice from.........

Finally today have an idea on what % of the adult population is vax in Germany. 70% of adults have one dose and 53% have completed their vaccination course. That’s fairly consistent with the rest of the EU so puts us on a stronger footing for wave 4 than the UK was at the outset of wave 3. The rapid peak and then fall in Scotland is weirdly giving me some hope. Like it burned through the available population quite rapidly And is starting to run out of steam fast. That is good. If England has a similar pattern then I think that gives us hope that we might be able to start putting this behind us

 

 

I do agree that some things will be needed longer term. Mask wearing in crowded places for example

But we're only going to get 90% of adults jabbed and that's not until September. So at that points schools and unis go back and we unlock - that's also a recipe for disaster. I don't think there is a perfect time to unlock restrictions, it's either now or never as we push things back too much in to the autumn, at least this way we have a vaccine and immunity wall. It's not ideal and I fully agree about the masks and track & trace. We're also seeing an effevt of people mixing more and more respiratory viruses that are not covid too circulating around the general population.

Hard to say, personally I think any exit wave that happens anywhere is going to be significant. Got to remember Delta has barely taken hold of Europe and USA yet. The data out of Israel and Malta is not good with high vaccine coverage. The vaccines are effective, but they're not good enough right now to get us out of the pandemic. Hence why I agree it's far from over, but I do think we're over the worst.

 

Most of the new infections in the U.K. are in people who haven’t been double vaccinated though. While the vaccines aren’t perfect, they have certainly broken the link between serious illness and death in most people but there will always be a small percentage of people who even if vaccinated will catch the virus and be unwell. In terms of comparing other countries, Israel has an average of just over 500 daily infections at present based on a population of 9 million. Their covid rates are no way near as high as the U.K. and probably because their vaccination coverage is higher than us and they have reinstated some compulsory measures to protect people.

 

 

Waiting a few more months before unlocking in this country would have given us a much better footing as more people would have been vaccinated and the exit wave would most likely have been less but of course that is also dependent on what happens elsewhere in the world. If a new more dangerous variant develops in the meantime then we will all be back to square one with lockdowns again. That risk has been amplified by the governments approach as rising case numbers make it an increased risk of the virus mutating.

Edited July 16, 20213 yr by slowdown73

Most of the new infections in the U.K. are in people who haven’t been double vaccinated though. While the vaccines aren’t perfect, they have certainly broken the link between serious illness and death in most people but there will always be a small percentage of people who even if vaccinated will catch the virus and be unwell. In terms of comparing other countries, Israel has an average of just over 500 daily infections at present based on a population of 9 million. Their covid rates are no way near as high as the U.K. and probably because their vaccination coverage is higher than us and they have reinstated some compulsory measures to protect people.

Waiting a few more months before unlocking in this country would have given us a much better footing as more people would have been vaccinated and the exit wave would most likely have been less but of course that is also dependent on what happens elsewhere in the world. If a new more dangerous variant develops in the meantime then we will all be back to square one with lockdowns again. That risk has been amplified by the governments approach as rising case numbers make it an increased risk of the virus mutating.

 

Yes most, but not all. The double vaccination clearly is saving lives and meaning if people who are admitted to hospital with it, they have a greater chance of fighting it off. There was a good news report from Preston on this. The vaccine numbers are falling off a cliff now, there's about 10% of the adult population who have not even had a 1st jab. A small proportion of this is people who can't have the jab for medical reasons. I think we're seeing the Euros effect here at the moment, which happened in Scotland too with increased social contacts.

 

I'm just of the idealism that if we don't unlock restrictions now, unlocking them in September/October is going to be far worse that you might as well not bother. I really do feel it's a now or never scenario, the science says as much. We will have a far longer exit wave, but I'm not sure we will get to the point where we have a massive singular peak, I just suspect it will be more constant.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguard...rld-experts-say

 

Interesting article in the Guardian today raising significant concerns about the governments unlocking!

To be honest, I feel quite scared of this at the moment... and I have been double-jabbed.

 

The schools around where I live appear riddled with it... primary schools have about half the pupils self-isolating. The school in my village have a third of their pupils self-isolating for the second time in a month. When it affects children in the way it is, it seems quite upsetting, even though by-and-large the kids don't have strong symptoms.

 

I heard a woman in a shop this morning saying she couldn't wait to get rid of her mask as she hated them. I know it's supposed to be a personal choice, but I always thought the idea was that masks protect people from you, not really you from other people; so is that a personal choice to not worry about giving it to other people?

 

I know we have to "live with it", but when not long ago we were looking for the days when there were ZERO daily deaths, and now they are back above 50, I don't know how we can just go back to living like it's gone away?

To be honest, I feel quite scared of this at the moment... and I have been double-jabbed.

 

The schools around where I live appear riddled with it... primary schools have about half the pupils self-isolating. The school in my village have a third of their pupils self-isolating for the second time in a month. When it affects children in the way it is, it seems quite upsetting, even though by-and-large the kids don't have strong symptoms.

 

I heard a woman in a shop this morning saying she couldn't wait to get rid of her mask as she hated them. I know it's supposed to be a personal choice, but I always thought the idea was that masks protect people from you, not really you from other people; so is that a personal choice to not worry about giving it to other people?

 

I know we have to "live with it", but when not long ago we were looking for the days when there were ZERO daily deaths, and now they are back above 50, I don't know how we can just go back to living like it's gone away?

 

I agree with you fully. I am also genuinely scared about the future and I have been double jabbed. I personally feel it is the wrong decision to be unlocking everything and removing compulsory measures like masks and social distancing at a time when cases are rising sharply due to the delta variant. A number of health experts have criticised the approach and there is virtually no other country I know of who are following this approach. Even well vaccinated populations like Israel have reintroduced measures such as compulsory masks. It is a highly risky situation and I know there are people who are saying there will never be a good time to unlock and it’s now or never but that doesn’t justify going ahead with it. Spain reopened nightclubs and saw cases increase by 8 times and have since closed them again. We are still in a very perilous situation and high infection rates carries the risk of another more dangerous variant developing and living in a society with high infection rates brings many challenges such as disruption to services due to people having to isolate and means life will be far from normal in any sense.

Edited July 16, 20213 yr by slowdown73

I agree with you fully. I am also genuinely scared about the future and I have been double jabbed. I personally feel it is the wrong decision to be unlocking everything and removing compulsory measures like masks and social distancing at a time when cases are rising sharply due to the delta variant. A number of health experts have criticised the approach and there is virtually no other country I know of who are following this approach. Even well vaccinated populations like Israel have reintroduced measures such as compulsory masks. It is a highly risky situation and I know there are people who are saying there will never be a good time to unlock and it’s now or never but that doesn’t justify going ahead with it. Spain reopened nightclubs and saw cases increase by 8 times and have since closed them again. We are still in a very perilous situation and high infection rates carries the risk of another more dangerous variant developing and living in a society with high infection rates brings many challenges such as disruption to services due to people having to isolate and means life will be far from normal in any sense.

 

Masks will come back as compulsory and nightclubs are going to shut again too. I don't agree with the decision either and imo it is purely a political one and will be re-introduced in September time. I suspect for the most part compliance of masks will be pretty high going off the data, what I am more worried about is the Mask wearer vs non-mask wearing debates and arguments that are going to start happening. I totally get people are scared and a little bit fearful - you know what, I am too. But is literally is now or Spring 2022.

 

The problem society has is if we're saying we can't open up when we have a high vaccination coverage as per Israel, just when do we open up?