Am I missing something?

My daughteris a sister at James Cooke hospital and informs me they have had to open another covid ward this week and they are now struggling to cope. My wife came back from UK last week and said not many of the staff even in food shops now ware masks, and they wonder why new cases and deaths are still high

costalad wrote:My daughteris a sister at James Cooke hospital and informs me they have had to open another covid ward this week and they are now struggling to cope. My wife came back from UK last week and said not many of the staff even in food shops now ware masks, and they wonder why new cases and deaths are still high

I am no "anti-masker" and also not qualified to judge what some countries or others are doing "right" or "wrong". Likewise, however, at what point of immunity do you have to drop the preventative measures?

As I said previously, the fact that in the UK there seems to be no measures at all pretty much now, the fact that deaths have flatlined shows how effective the vaccination programme has been. The "exit spike" was always foreseen when restrictions were eased and a necessary evil.

We have to work our way back towards living with Covid. Locking ourselves at home, keeping 2m apart and closing workplaces, events etc etc can't be sustainable for the long terms. You can implement those measures and numbers will be vastly reduced, but at some stage you have to return to proximity to others and its a case of minimising that spike. You could argue that the UK are simply further along the normality curve and so another reason why you can't compare cases. Compare it to somewhere that is still in a harsh border closed/lockdown scenario and the figures will display as such, but at some in the road to return they will have to open up. Its then a balance of doing so in considering where the respective vaccination programme is at and the extent to which the natural herd immunity has also imparted antibodies to diminish the Covid effect.

Apart from it being pointless comparing cases when testing rates are vastly different,comparing a small country with 66m people with a vast country with approx. 45m people is also pointless.I guess some people are trying to make a political point out of this.

The original post was not intended to compare U.K. with others. It was simply to point out that despite high vaccination uptake in the U.K. the figures are not coming down.

mondo wrote:If we were all careful things would be easier.

If we wore a mask, kept our distance, avoided large crowds, had the vaccinations and generally behaved sensibly we can all get on with life reasonably well.... and basically that is what we do, and we are enjoying life.

Sadly it is the antivaxxers and those conspiracy theory nutters who call masks "face nappies", think vaccines make you magnetic, and truly believe the world leaders are "out to get us" that is making life more difficult for everyone.... including themselves.

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Let's hope Darwinism sorts things out..
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There is a difference between antivaxxers and people who are concerned about taking a vaccine that is still under trial until 2023. Even WHO have admitted that the vaccine doesn’t make you immune and you can still catch covid also the coercion and blackmail that is happening around the world to enforce this upon people surely should be a concern. What is happening is dividing people.

Another 36,710 new U.K. cases today. That’s up 2250 from yesterday. Plus 182 more deaths, up 14 from yesterday. There were under 27,000 this time last week and 158 deaths. Coming down? Levelling out? Not according to today’s figures.

While it is never good that someone dies of something that could have been prevented, where Covid is concerned the figures just don’t stack up. At first, all deaths, no matter what underlying conditions, was said to be by Covid. To that end, it was said 100’s of 1000’s died of Covid.

But, now the facts. Approx a half million deaths in the U.K. for all causes each and every year, fair enough. But, last year, there’s was only a fluctuation of 42000 extra deaths. Those could have been for anything, any cause. Even if every single one were blamed on covid, point out the obvious, it just does not add up to anything to make the slightest sense for 100’s of 1000’s deaths caused by covid.

Every countries government has gone crackers with covid preventative measures and rightly so for an unknown situation.
But the facts are out there, you don’t need to believe me, have a look. Each person can choose to use protective measures for themselves if they do wish. But we need to be getting back to normal life.

Bendy, if you live in Spain what does it matter what the statistics state about uk or anywhere else than spain

cogsie wrote:Bendy, if you live in Spain what does it matter what the statistics state about uk or anywhere else than spain

. First of all, please learn to spell correctly , it’s BENJY. secondly, the U.K. is my country of birth and thirdly, I have friends and family in the U.K. that I wish to stay safe, as I’m sure others have as well.

Benjy wrote:Another 36,710 new U.K. cases today. That’s up 2250 from yesterday. Plus 182 more deaths, up 14 from yesterday. There were under 27,000 this time last week and 158 deaths. Coming down? Levelling out? Not according to today’s figures.

Because there are next to no restrictions in the UK - it has opened up almost as it was pre-Covid.
Because the weather is turning colder.
Because sporting events have crowds returned, concerts are back on.
Many who were working from home are now back in offices.
Students have moved around the country and are back at universities.
Nightclubs and nightlife are back open. Dancing and cavorting are back (see uni students above).

Questions of whether it was opened up too soon or whatever are another matter, but I think taking into account the above, infections were always prone to rise substantially and no doubt will in other countries as they lift restrictions, particularly those prone to cooler climates. It's simply the fact that the UK has abandoned almost any restrictions that kept infections down.