This is a false dichotomy; if Sars-Cov-2 had occurred at the time of the Black Death, hardly any deaths would have occurred and society would have barely noticed it.
Thats ludicrous testing is double what it was and with false positives its never going to get that low. Positivity rates (less than 5% is WHO target for non pandemic conditions) are a more appropriate but even that wasn't on BoJos previous criteria of Covid deaths, vaccine rollout, new variants and pressure on hospital beds were the main determinants. CRG are saying nothing again but maybe this is just the Doves vs Hawks playing things out in the media so Boris can come out of it on a high next Monday.
We should be bothered because we are supposedly following the science, not some personal concerns of a celebrity. It is the JCVI's job to assess risk and prioritise accordingly and the last thing we need is random people popping up saying one group or another should be prioritised because it affects them or one of their family. It should also be pretty obvious that if one group is moved up then other people are moved down so if the group are just moved up because someone goes on the radio with a sad story and they are not really more vulnerable it could mean people who are more at risk than them waiting longer.
Plus the article mentions the requirement to work from home isn’t being lifted even by summerThe Daily Mail reckon they've got their hands on an outline of the so called 'blueprint'
Roadmap out of lockdown: Blueprint for UK's future
The gradual approach means traders will have to wait until at least Easter - early April - for a limited restart.www.dailymail.co.uk
Basically, it sounds as if summer will be groundhog day of summer 2020 and it doesn't sound too hopeful for social distancing to vanish before the end of 2021 either!
Not interested in this date speculation from the papers they need to be holding them to account to publish the criteria they are using and the target numbers then they have nowhere to hide when things play out better.The Daily Mail reckon they've got their hands on an outline of the so called 'blueprint'
Roadmap out of lockdown: Blueprint for UK's future
The gradual approach means traders will have to wait until at least Easter - early April - for a limited restart.
Basically, it sounds as if summer will be groundhog day of summer 2020 and it doesn't sound too hopeful for social distancing to vanish before the end of 2021 either!
As time goes on, the number of people supporting lockdowns will continue to dwindle; if they drag it out too long the only people supporting lockdowns left will be the 'zero covid' / 'lockdown indefinitely' brigade who want cases to be close to zero before we unlock. But I doubt any of them vote Tory and they'll be unhappy whenever the lockdown is lifted.
Yeah thats a fair shout
My employer has told us it'll be "late summer" at the earliest before we're back in the office.
I guess it will be advice rather than legally obligated. If it is advice, it will probably be ignored by those who struggle to work from home if their employers let them work in the office.
Well if it is true then hope he's got a good scientific reason for it and shares it with us. All he's done is pluck figures out of thin air for past 6 months or so with no reasoning for these figures.According to the front page of tomorrow's Telegraph, lockdown will continue until cases drop below 1,000 per day. If this is the case, this is absolutely ridiculous. Because we may well never get to below 1,000 cases per day!
If the front page of The Times is anything to go by, where they talk about blitz testing to coincide with easing restrictions, mass testing will be with Lateral Flow tests, not PCR. This could go either way, the issue of false positives diminishes, but all these extra tests ultimately pickup more infections, but I agree positivity matters more, and as @yorkie mentions further up, there are a lot of problems with 1,000 cases a day as a target that would see either a reduction in people going for tests and/or a later U-turn on that figure were it to become official.
I'm still at a loss to understand the need for this once majority are vaccinated. What is the point. Almost everyone who gets it will not have severe symptoms so why waste all the time and effort? This country has spent far too much money and effort already on this, we need to start winding all this down not up.
Indeed they need to be challenged over the original rationale for vaccination if nothing improves. This is why the roadmap needs to be based on the criteria for each stage and NO speculation on dates when they will be met.
There certainly appears to be a sizeable proportion of the population who presumably are either furloughed, working from home or retired, who don’t come across as particularly concerned if most of this year gets written off or whether or not they can actually go anywhere on holiday .
I'll be joining you if that's the case.
Personally, if the restrictions go on for too long, I am hoping there is a legal challenge to the restrictions which the government loses. Then the government will have no choice but to ease the restrictions.
The latest news from the Netherlands suggests it's not beyond the bounds that such a legal challenge can be made and won.
That might be the same unwritten constitution that allowed the Supreme Court to overturn the 2019 prorogation of Parliament, so that could go either way.
If the Black Death occurred now, there would not need to be laws telling people to stay at home! Conversely, who would want to go out to keep the National Grid up and running? Once that started to collapse, so would everything else.
Stay home. Save the National Grid
The Daily Mail reckon they've got their hands on an outline of the so called 'blueprint'
Roadmap out of lockdown: Blueprint for UK's future
The gradual approach means traders will have to wait until at least Easter - early April - for a limited restart.
Basically, it sounds as if summer will be groundhog day of summer 2020 and it doesn't sound too hopeful for social distancing to vanish before the end of 2021 either!
According to the front page of tomorrow's Telegraph, lockdown will continue until cases drop below 1,000 per day. If this is the case, this is absolutely ridiculous. Because we may well never get to below 1,000 cases per day!
I don't think the bulk of the Tory party will stand for that, even if they don't/can't force a change immediately, they will have a stronger hand the longer time goes on trying to pursue this sort of threshold without actually getting there (not ideal but unfortunately how it might be).
