New lockdown in England, including school closures, announced by Johnson, 4/1/21

[ainsworth74]

XMA are a long standing and reputable company, with experience in the area. I have no idea what the bidding process was or if they have any political connections.

Well knock me down with a feather we've found something that might not have the trappings of corruption on it! Thank you for the informative link

 

[kristiang85]

The vaccine will (hopefully) prevent the overwhelming majority of deaths, so Covid will no longer be a "granny killer".

However, this almost makes the problem worse - because suddenly a lot more vulnerable people will be surviving and thus keeping hospital beds occupied whilst recovering.

A similar sort of problem has been precipitated by the advent of improved treatments for Covid - and really, the vaccine is just a highly effective treatment.

For as long as Joe Public (and thus the politicians) think that preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed is more important than anything else in life, we will continue to suffer these restrictions.

It is intereresting what perception (or lack of it) does for the general population when looking at the numbers.

In the UK 78,000 people die of smoking related diseases per year, and 489,300 are hospitalised with smoking related illnesses per year (based on 2018/2019 data).

For COVID so far, 94,580 have died with COVID and 355,143 have been hospitalised (based on gov.uk data today).

So essentially the figures are pretty similar (while the death toll with COVID is larger in the past year, go back even one year further than that and smoking is obviously responsible for far more), and smoking is a similar burden on healthcare than COVID is if you adjust to a year. And although one could argue this is down to personal choice, passive smoking still creates lots of issues, and of course taking up hospital beds creates the same problems as COVID.

Yet the government/CMO/public have clearly seen that the benefits of giving people the freedom of being able to smoke if they want to (and of course HMRC's income) is worth the toll in terms of deaths and hospitalisations.

Why isn't the same conclusion being made on COVID, given the numbers are pretty similar? Especially as banning smoking wouldn't actually destroy the economy, affect children's education, decrease diagnosis and healthcare for other conditions, cause a swathe of national mental health issues and affect the freedoms of every single person in the country. There is precedent for living with these kind of figures; there's absolutely no precedent for lockdowns and the collatoral damage they cause.

 

[Watershed]

It is intereresting what perception (or lack of it) does for the general population when looking at the numbers.

In the UK 78,000 people die of smoking related diseases per year, and 489,300 are hospitalised with smoking related illnesses per year (based on 2018/2019 data).

For COVID so far, 94,580 have died with COVID and 355,143 have been hospitalised (based on gov.uk data today).

So essentially the figures are pretty similar (while the death toll with COVID is larger in the past year, go back even one year further than that and smoking is obviously responsible for far more), and smoking is a similar burden on healthcare than COVID is if you adjust to a year. And although one could argue this is down to personal choice, passive smoking still creates lots of issues, and of course taking up hospital beds creates the same problems as COVID.

Yet the government/CMO/public have clearly seen that the benefits of giving people the freedom of being able to smoke if they want to (and of course HMRC's income) is worth the toll in terms of deaths and hospitalisations.

Why isn't the same conclusion being made on COVID, given the numbers are pretty similar? Especially as banning smoking wouldn't actually destroy the economy, affect children's education, decrease diagnosis and healthcare for other conditions, cause a swathe of national mental health issues and affect the freedoms of every single person in the country. There is precedent for living with these kind of figures; there's absolutely no precedent for lockdowns and the collatoral damage they cause.

In many ways it's an apt comparison, particularly since passive smoking is somewhat analogous to the spread of the virus.

I suppose the counterargument that will inevitably be raised is that it's far easier to regulate smoking than it is to regulate the virus, and that smoking is clearly visible whereas some people carry the virus asymptomatically.

As you say, it comes down to perspective. The Covid death toll makes the headlines each day - but you never hear a mention of the other ~75% of people that have died that day. They don't matter, because they're not Covid patients. I think that says it all.

 

[Class 33]

Another Downing Street News Conference today at 5. This one yet another one with Johnson, Whitty and Vallance!! With those three it obviously won't be any good positive news! Though am not expecting any bad news of "tougher measures". I expect it will be just the same old "We're at a very critical point right now.", "We're not out of the woods yet.", "We have a long way to go yet.", "We must keep sticking to these restrictions." we'll be told yet again!

 

[221129]

Another Downing Street News Conference today at 5. This one yet another one with Johnson, Whitty and Vallance!! With those three it obviously won't be any good positive news! Though am not expecting any bad news of "tougher measures". I expect it will be just the same old "We're at a very critical point right now.", "We're not out of the woods yet.", "We have a long way to go yet.", "We must keep sticking to these restrictions." we'll be told yet again!

Rumour is a ban to some international traffic.

 

[kristiang85]

Another Downing Street News Conference today at 5. This one yet another one with Johnson, Whitty and Vallance!! With those three it obviously won't be any good positive news! Though am not expecting any bad news of "tougher measures". I expect it will be just the same old "We're at a very critical point right now.", "We're not out of the woods yet.", "We have a long way to go yet.", "We must keep sticking to these restrictions." we'll be told yet again!

Time to get the bingo card out

 

[Bertie the bus]

The vaccine will (hopefully) prevent the overwhelming majority of deaths, so Covid will no longer be a "granny killer".

However, this almost makes the problem worse - because suddenly a lot more vulnerable people will be surviving and thus keeping hospital beds occupied whilst recovering.

A similar sort of problem has been precipitated by the advent of improved treatments for Covid - and really, the vaccine is just a highly effective treatment.

For as long as Joe Public (and thus the politicians) think that preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed is more important than anything else in life, we will continue to suffer these restrictions.

It doesn't make the problem worse at all. The whole idea of vaccination is to make enough people immune and therefore people who have the virus struggle to pass it on to others. The virus will continue to circulate but vaccination should prevent these large flare ups. It is the so-called waves that inundate the hospitals and herd or community immunity go a long way to preventing them.

 

[MikeWM]

Yet the government/CMO/public have clearly seen that the benefits of giving people the freedom of being able to smoke if they want to (and of course HMRC's income) is worth the toll in terms of deaths and hospitalisations.

A cynic may say it is somewhat of a pragmatic decision. As you say, you have a lot of income generated. In addition, while smokers may take up NHS resources now, they are significantly less likely to live as long and so don't take up NHS resources later - on balance they probably put less of a strain on the NHS.

This article is from 2016, but at the time over 40% of NHS budget was spent on over-65s. The more people live longer, the greater their medical demands become.

 

[WelshBluebird]

It is intereresting what perception (or lack of it) does for the general population when looking at the numbers.

In the UK 78,000 people die of smoking related diseases per year, and 489,300 are hospitalised with smoking related illnesses per year (based on 2018/2019 data).

For COVID so far, 94,580 have died with COVID and 355,143 have been hospitalised (based on gov.uk data today).

So essentially the figures are pretty similar (while the death toll with COVID is larger in the past year, go back even one year further than that and smoking is obviously responsible for far more), and smoking is a similar burden on healthcare than COVID is if you adjust to a year. And although one could argue this is down to personal choice, passive smoking still creates lots of issues, and of course taking up hospital beds creates the same problems as COVID.

Yet the government/CMO/public have clearly seen that the benefits of giving people the freedom of being able to smoke if they want to (and of course HMRC's income) is worth the toll in terms of deaths and hospitalisations.

Why isn't the same conclusion being made on COVID, given the numbers are pretty similar? Especially as banning smoking wouldn't actually destroy the economy, affect children's education, decrease diagnosis and healthcare for other conditions, cause a swathe of national mental health issues and affect the freedoms of every single person in the country. There is precedent for living with these kind of figures; there's absolutely no precedent for lockdowns and the collatoral damage they cause.

Do I really need to explain the differences between smoking and COVID?
The comparison is just absurd. At the very least because smoking isn't contagious (and as much as second hand smoke is a problem, we have put in place workplace bans, pub bans etc etc to try to limit the risk). Of course, you can simply stop smoking too whereas you can't just decide stop having COVID.
And of course, the reality of todays world is that we do heavily restrict the freedoms of people when it comes to smoking. So much so that you cannot smoke in pubs or many other private businesses now, and even in terms of housing many places stipulate no smoking inside.

 

[Domh245]

In the UK 78,000 people die of smoking related diseases per year, and 489,300 are hospitalised with smoking related illnesses per year (based on 2018/2019 data).

For COVID so far, 94,580 have died with COVID and 355,143 have been hospitalised (based on gov.uk data today).

Using the PHE figures from today, Covid is the second highest underlying cause of death between 21/3/20 & 8/1/21 after cancer (74,003 covid deaths, 109,414 cancer deaths) so I think it's safe to say it's quite an issue

Why isn't the same conclusion being made on COVID, given the numbers are pretty similar? Especially as banning smoking wouldn't actually destroy the economy, affect children's education, decrease diagnosis and healthcare for other conditions, cause a swathe of national mental health issues and affect the freedoms of every single person in the country. There is precedent for living with these kind of figures; there's absolutely no precedent for lockdowns and the collatoral damage they cause.

Most importantly, there's no precedent for something like £1million/QALY, which is what we've spent so far looking at the cost of lockdowns, and is well above the normal cutoff for being considered good value

 

[kristiang85]

Do I really need to explain the differences between smoking and COVID?
The comparison is just absurd. At the very least because smoking isn't contagious (and as much as second hand smoke is a problem, we have put in place workplace bans etc to try to limit the risk). Of course, you can simply stop smoking too whereas you can't just decide stop having COVID.
And of course, the reality of todays world is that we do heavily restrict the freedoms of people when it comes to smoking. So much so that you cannot smoke in pubs or many other private businesses now, and even in terms of housing many places stipulate no smoking inside.

I'm not saying they are similar conditions; the comparison I'm making is with the debate on "how much death are we happy living with". In terms of the numbers, there isn't any difference.

Now if you want to go down the other route; one could say it's up to people to decide whether to smoke or not, as you say, but the government is not letting us decide what risk we have with COVID - why shouldn't those who are worried about it be given the choice to isolate, and get government support whilst the crisis is ongoing, whilst the rest of us go out and live our lives and get the economy going again?

Also whilst you can choose to stop smoking yourself, others still doing it still means the NHS being used for smoking-related illnesses - which blocks it up for other conditions. Which is exactly the same argument for COVID giving the justification for us all being cooped up.

It's really not that different a scenario at all when you look at it like that (whereas of course they are completely different afflictions).

Finally, anybody who smokes long term is affected generally the same way. With COVID, you can identify pretty easily those who will be affected most (with a few tragic exceptions), so again why penalise everybody else?

Using the PHE figures from today, Covid is the second highest underlying cause of death between 21/3/20 & 8/1/21 after cancer (74,003 covid deaths, 109,414 cancer deaths) so I think it's safe to say it's quite an issue

Yes that's right now. But look at those figures over a 3 year / 5 year / 10 year period, and it will get vanishingly smaller than all the other conditions, which are a constant each year.

Most importantly, there's no precedent for something like £1million/QALY, which is what we've spent so far looking at the cost of lockdowns, and is well above the normal cutoff for being considered good value

Yes I read a similar article recently; it is quite frankly criminal some of the costs involved.

A cynic may say it is somewhat of a pragmatic decision. As you say, you have a lot of income generated. In addition, while smokers may take up NHS resources now, they are significantly less likely to live as long and so don't take up NHS resources later - on balance they probably put less of a strain on the NHS.

This article is from 2016, but at the time over 40% of NHS budget was spent on over-65s. The more people live longer, the greater their medical demands become.

Well tobacco duty generates 8.8bn in a year, so the government are going to have to get a lot of us addicted to tobacco to help pay off the 350bn+ spent on this! Ha.

But yes I see your point about longevity; but considering most COVID patients are already generating a lot of cost on the health service for other conditions, if you were being really cynical about it, why not let COVID take it's natural course? So I don't think that's the answer, to be honest.

 

[brad465]

Looks like they are trying to downplay this £500 isolation fund policy:

Covid-19: No plans for universal £500 self-isolation payment, No 10 says

A £500 payment is already available for those on low incomes who cannot work from home, No 10 says.

www.bbc.co.uk

Government sources have firmly downplayed the idea of a universal £500 Covid payment for people in England required to self-isolate.

It is among the suggestions in a leaked document from the Department of Health.

There are fears the current financial support is not working because low paid workers cannot afford to self-isolate.

But a senior government source cast doubt on the idea, saying it had been drawn up by officials and had not been considered by the prime minister.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is another example of leaking a policy idea to gauge public opinion before deciding whether or not to go ahead with it.

 

[yorksrob]

Do I really need to explain the differences between smoking and COVID?
The comparison is just absurd. At the very least because smoking isn't contagious (and as much as second hand smoke is a problem, we have put in place workplace bans, pub bans etc etc to try to limit the risk). Of course, you can simply stop smoking too whereas you can't just decide stop having COVID.
And of course, the reality of todays world is that we do heavily restrict the freedoms of people when it comes to smoking. So much so that you cannot smoke in pubs or many other private businesses now, and even in terms of housing many places stipulate no smoking inside.

We don't block them up in their homes though.

 

[Mag_seven]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is another example of leaking a policy idea to gauge public opinion before deciding whether or not to go ahead with it.

That appears to be the way they have been doing this from the start TBH - I thought they had got rid of Dominic Cummings?

 

[Domh245]

Yes that's right now. But look at those figures over a 3 year / 5 year / 10 year period, and it will get vanishingly smaller than all the other conditions, which are a constant each year.

I'm not sure I get your point here? Are you trying to compare ~10 months of covid deaths to (up to) 10 years of other deaths, or are you trying to argue that once we've let it burn through the population once we'll see the number of deaths drop off to a significantly smaller rate? Because the first is an absolutely bizarre way of using the statistics, and the second doesn't seem to be guaranteed without some sort of intervention as we have now in the form of vaccination.

 

[kristiang85]

are you trying to argue that once we've let it burn through the population once we'll see the number of deaths drop off to a significantly smaller rate? Because the first is an absolutely bizarre way of using the statistics, and the second doesn't seem to be guaranteed without some sort of intervention as we have now in the form of vaccination.

Well yes, that's how immunity works. Show me a coronavirus in history that was new, and then kept peaking to the same levels each year after its initial surge (and most, if not all, did not have vaccines developed for them).

As for my use of the length of time in the stats, I'm looking at the long-term perception of death: 210,000+ people die from smoking-related conditions in 3 years; in total probably 120,000 will have their deaths attributed to COVID-19. Why is 120,000 any more serious than 210,000? It's bascially a long winded way of saying the nation needs to have a grown up conversation about death in general, and what measures are proportionate to trying to lengthen lives. Because at the moment I think that is well out of balance, because the government/media have concentrated too much on COVID and ignored the rest.

I can pretty much gaurantee also that in any 3 year timeframe that includes 2020/21, the average deaths will not be higher (in a statistically significant way) than an adjacent 3yr timeframe.

 

[Domh245]

Well yes, that's how immunity works. Show me a coronavirus in history that was new, and then kept peaking to the same levels each year after its initial surge (and most, if not all, did not have vaccines developed for them).

I'm just going off the current spate of stories which seem to suggest that every new variant going to render vaccines (and by logical extension, prior natural immunity) less effective. It may just be media doom-mongering, and in fact immunity will be effective and long lasting preventing future years from having high death rates, but there would seem to be increasing amounts of evidence that this cannot be taken for granted.

 

[kristiang85]

I'm just going off the current spate of stories which seem to suggest that every new variant going to render vaccines (and by logical extension, prior natural immunity) less effective. It may just be media doom-mongering, and in fact immunity will be effective and long lasting preventing future years from having high death rates, but there would seem to be increasing amounts of evidence that this cannot be taken for granted.

Well generally most coronaviruses don't evolve to the extent that, say, influenzas do - which I think is what the media are lazily making assumptions with.

Research has shown that those with existing immunity to SARS from 2003 still maintain stronger immunity to SARS-COV-2 now, which could also explain why South East Asia hasn't been as badly hit by COVID, given they were the worst hit region during the SARS crisis (not yet proven though!).

I haven't seen any conclusive evidence either way yet, but certainly there's nothing saying any of the new variants can get past the vaccine yet - although naturally you do expect dominant variations to be those that can get round immunity caused naturally or by the vaccine. However, if we lived on that basis, we would never go outside again.

 

[takno]

I'm just going off the current spate of stories which seem to suggest that every new variant going to render vaccines (and by logical extension, prior natural immunity) less effective. It may just be media doom-mongering, and in fact immunity will be effective and long lasting preventing future years from having high death rates, but there would seem to be increasing amounts of evidence that this cannot be taken for granted.

It's worth reading the actual papers. The claims they are making are a lot less alarmist than the media commentary.

The main thing they seem to be confirming is that the antibody potency declines over time (albeit less quickly than infection-acquired immunity), and that the response in blood plasma is less potent against the current big 3 variants. No indication that antibodies become completely impotent, and no testing on T-cell immunity at all.

Basically we're saying that elimination as a strategy is probably not achievable, even with vaccines, and that we may well want to start thinking in terms of an annual vaccination modified for current strains like flu. I'm not sure that's a massive surprise to anybody who's been paying attention.

 

[Yew]

Well generally most coronaviruses don't evolve to the extent that, say, influenzas do - which I think is what the media are lazily making assumptions with.

Research has shown that those with existing immunity to SARS from 2003 still maintain stronger immunity to SARS-COV-2 now, which could also explain why South East Asia hasn't been as badly hit by COVID, given they were the worst hit region during the SARS crisis (not yet proven though!).

I haven't seen any conclusive evidence either way yet, but certainly there's nothing saying any of the new variants can get past the vaccine yet - although naturally you do expect dominant variations to be those that can get round immunity caused naturally or by the vaccine. However, if we lived on that basis, we would never go outside again.

From what I understand, the Kentish 'Super Strain' is dropping down rather rapidly now relative to the 'classic' strain, almost as it if it were a random fluctuation in relative prevalence, as opposed to a more infectious strain.

 

[duncanp]

Another Downing Street News Conference today at 5. This one yet another one with Johnson, Whitty and Vallance!! With those three it obviously won't be any good positive news! Though am not expecting any bad news of "tougher measures". I expect it will be just the same old "We're at a very critical point right now.", "We're not out of the woods yet.", "We have a long way to go yet.", "We must keep sticking to these restrictions." we'll be told yet again!

Time for a game of Boris Bingo then.

 

[35B]

It's worth reading the actual papers. The claims they are making are a lot less alarmist than the media commentary.

The main thing they seem to be confirming is that the antibody potency declines over time (albeit less quickly than infection-acquired immunity), and that the response in blood plasma is less potent against the current big 3 variants. No indication that antibodies become completely impotent, and no testing on T-cell immunity at all.

Basically we're saying that elimination as a strategy is probably not achievable, even with vaccines, and that we may well want to start thinking in terms of an annual vaccination modified for current strains like flu. I'm not sure that's a massive surprise to anybody who's been paying attention.

Indeed. The question then being at what point is incidence in the population low enough that and the number of people vaccinated high enough, that increasing social contact doesn't create undue risk of large numbers having Covid and needing treatment for it. That pregnant 34 year old may be exceptional and unusual, but there are still significant numbers - and it's raw numbers, not percentages, that count - of "younger" people needing care.

The issue here not being whether the "at risk" groups are vaccinated or not, but the absolute prevalence of the disease in the community and it's ability to infect large enough numbers of people that, based on the ratios of between numbers infected to the numbers ill to the numbers needing medical care to the numbers needing hospitalisation to the numbers dying, the toll would be socially unacceptable.

Listening to Radio 4 this morning, I heard a suggestion that herd immunity might only kick in once ~80% of the population are immune. If correct, that leaves some significant questions about how the trade-offs might work during a period in which the general population have not been vaccinated.

From what I understand, the Kentish 'Super Strain' is dropping down rather rapidly now relative to the 'classic' strain, almost as it if it were a random fluctuation in relative prevalence, as opposed to a more infectious strain.

Source(s)?

 

[brad465]

This article on the BBC that tries to explain why vaccinating the vulnerable won't end lockdown does have, despite all the doom and gloom initially, text that includes Whitty's acceptance of lower risk, the CRG's influence and a sociologist believing in a pretty rapid lifting of restrictions in spring and summer:

Covid: Why won't vaccinating the vulnerable end lockdown?

Doubts have been raised about lifting Covid restrictions in the spring. What are the hurdles in the way?

www.bbc.co.uk

Tough judgements will have to be made​

But on the other side of all this is the huge impact lockdown has.

The first priority will, of course, be the re-opening of schools.

Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, says everything must be done to make this happen.

He says while schools contributed to spread of the virus, they were not a "significant driver", adding schools were closed for the "benefit of the population" but at great expense to children.

Once schools are open some tough calls will have to be made - and this is where the debate is going to rage.

Backbench Tory MPs are putting the pressure on the prime minister with the Covid Recovery Group calling for a "gradually unwrapping" of society from early March.

In the end, it is going to come down to what society is willing to tolerate.

UK chief medical adviser Prof Chris Whitty has spoken about "de-risking" Covid.

His point is that we will reach a situation at which the level of death and illness caused by Covid is at a level society can "tolerate" - just as we tolerate 7,000 to 20,000 people dying from flu every year.

Sociologist Prof Robert Dingwall, who advises the government on the science of human behaviour, believes that point will be reached sooner rather than later.

"I think we will see a pretty rapid lifting of restrictions in the spring and summer.

"There are some sections of the science community that want to pursue an elimination strategy - but once you start seeing fatality levels down at the level of flu I think the public will accept that."

 

[packermac]

It is intereresting what perception (or lack of it) does for the general population when looking at the numbers.

In the UK 78,000 people die of smoking related diseases per year, and 489,300 are hospitalised with smoking related illnesses per year (based on 2018/2019 data).

For COVID so far, 94,580 have died with COVID and 355,143 have been hospitalised (based on gov.uk data today).

So essentially the figures are pretty similar (while the death toll with COVID is larger in the past year, go back even one year further than that and smoking is obviously responsible for far more), and smoking is a similar burden on healthcare than COVID is if you adjust to a year. And although one could argue this is down to personal choice, passive smoking still creates lots of issues, and of course taking up hospital beds creates the same problems as COVID.

Yet the government/CMO/public have clearly seen that the benefits of giving people the freedom of being able to smoke if they want to (and of course HMRC's income) is worth the toll in terms of deaths and hospitalisations.

Why isn't the same conclusion being made on COVID, given the numbers are pretty similar? Especially as banning smoking wouldn't actually destroy the economy, affect children's education, decrease diagnosis and healthcare for other conditions, cause a swathe of national mental health issues and affect the freedoms of every single person in the country. There is precedent for living with these kind of figures; there's absolutely no precedent for lockdowns and the collatoral damage they cause.

Whilst many may feel the NHS perhaps should not be looking after smokers, smoking is a lifestyle choice (maybe caused by an addiction). The concept of the NHS is treatment for all, so whilst the smokers have helped to get to their own situation, most Covid patients will not, unless of cause they have knowingly attended events that are not legal or have chosen to ignore advice on how to act to protect themselves.

 

[takno]

Indeed. The question then being at what point is incidence in the population low enough that and the number of people vaccinated high enough, that increasing social contact doesn't create undue risk of large numbers having Covid and needing treatment for it. That pregnant 34 year old may be exceptional and unusual, but there are still significant numbers - and it's raw numbers, not percentages, that count - of "younger" people needing care.

The issue here not being whether the "at risk" groups are vaccinated or not, but the absolute prevalence of the disease in the community and it's ability to infect large enough numbers of people that, based on the ratios of between numbers infected to the numbers ill to the numbers needing medical care to the numbers needing hospitalisation to the numbers dying, the toll would be socially unacceptable.

Listening to Radio 4 this morning, I heard a suggestion that herd immunity might only kick in once ~80% of the population are immune. If correct, that leaves some significant questions about how the trade-offs might work during a period in which the general population have not been vaccinated.

Lasting herd immunity is pretty much off the table, for much the same reasons as elimination is off the table. The protection is far too incomplete, and potentially not long-lasting enough.

It's not at all clear that we need to reach anything like full herd immunity though to reduce hospital admissions to safe levels. We know that younger people are much less likely to end up in hospital than older people, even if the age profile isn't as extreme as it is for deaths, and even if nothing is 100% perfect, 20% of the population having had the jab, and 20% of the population having had the disease in the last six months leaves a lot fewer people to suffer significant ill-health, and a lot lower r value absent interventions.

None of this is magic. The hospital numbers will fall, probably very sharply over the next month, and whatever the media and government chooses to trumpet, that will be driven by previous infections and vaccinations more than it is by lockdown.

Whilst many may feel the NHS perhaps should not be looking after smokers, smoking is a lifestyle choice (maybe caused by an addiction). The concept of the NHS is treatment for all, so whilst the smokers have helped to get to their own situation, most Covid patients will not, unless of cause they have knowingly attended events that are not legal or have chosen to ignore advice on how to act to protect themselves.

Same is true of people who got injured throwing themselves out of aeroplanes with parachutes. Or people who slipped and fell while out for a non-mandatory walk. The point of an NHS free at the point of use is that the only judgements they make are based on availability of resources, relative cost and likely outcomes. If they start making sniffy moral judgements about what you were up that got you into this state then they are unfit for purpose.

The only people demanding this sort of nonsense are the health psychologists and public health specialists who are making such a mess of the Covid response right now

 

[ChrisC]

Lasting herd immunity is pretty much off the table, for much the same reasons as elimination is off the table. The protection is far too incomplete, and potentially not long-lasting enough.

It's not at all clear that we need to reach anything like full herd immunity though to reduce hospital admissions to safe levels. We know that younger people are much less likely to end up in hospital than older people, even if the age profile isn't as extreme as it is for deaths, and even if nothing is 100% perfect, 20% of the population having had the jab, and 20% of the population having had the disease in the last six months leaves a lot fewer people to suffer significant ill-health, and a lot lower r value absent interventions.

None of this is magic. The hospital numbers will fall, probably very sharply over the next month, and whatever the media and government chooses to trumpet, that will be driven by previous infections and vaccinations more than it is by lockdown.

I think it’s very difficult for anyone to know what level of herd immunity there now actually is in various parts of the country. During the summer infection levels in the South East and particularly London were extremely low leading to some newspaper articles suggesting that Covid had almost been suppressed in many parts of London. The reason behind this being given as a large proportion of the population of London, especially younger people who mainly had it very mildly, had all had Covid during February, March and April. London had low infection levels for months until the new variant arrived and then Covid was being declared as out of control in London and the South East.

Other areas of the country like the East Midlands and the South West were not too badly affected by the first wave and so very little level of herd immunity had built up in these regions. The East Midlands, especially Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire then had spiralling rates of infection following the students returning in September. It may, of course, may not have been the students that caused this.

There are also other areas like the City of Leicester, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire that have, sometimes unexplainably, high infection levels throughout. Other areas like Cornwall, Devon, Herefordshire etc have had relatively low levels of infection throughout. Therefore I think the vaccine will have a more more important effect on controlling and levelling out levels of infection nationally.

 

[Class 33]

Time for a game of Boris Bingo then.

Vallance will probably say "If we lift the lid too soon, things will boil over again." again!

 

[greyman42]

Whilst many may feel the NHS perhaps should not be looking after smokers, smoking is a lifestyle choice (maybe caused by an addiction). The concept of the NHS is treatment for all, so whilst the smokers have helped to get to their own situation, most Covid patients will not, unless of cause they have knowingly attended events that are not legal or have chosen to ignore advice on how to act to protect themselves.

Being overweight increases the risk of becoming seriously ill with covid yet few have done anything about it.

 

[DB]

Being overweight increases the risk of becoming seriously ill with covid yet few have done anything about it.

And the government rules for a lot of this year have directly resulted in a lot more people being overweight.

 

[joncombe]

Being overweight increases the risk of becoming seriously ill with covid yet few have done anything about it.

Closing gyms and telling people they should not leave home is bound to have helped.