Let's hope the public transport requirement can be ditched soon too.According to the Sun newspaper, masks will be ditched in ALL settings on June 21st! All settings that is, except for public transport!
I hope so too, but if any restriction is going to be here for the long term - or even permanently - its masks on public transport. Though the Government say we need to learn to live with the virus (which we certainly do), I believe the Government are too scared to completely abolish compulsory mask rules and social distancing.Let's hope the public transport requirement can be ditched soon too.
I'm not so sure. Patrick Vallance was talking about reintroducing face coverings on public transport in winter implying the mandate may be removed before then.I hope so too, but if any restriction is going to be here for the long term - or even permanently - its masks on public transport. Though the Government say we need to learn to live with the virus (which we certainly do), I believe the Government are too scared to completely abolish compulsory mask rules and social distancing.
It was a question asked to Johnson in Parliament where I recall him confirming it if all goes to plan, we just have to hope he follows through on that.Now reading that 'work from home where possible' guidance will be dropped on June 21st. Another positive step.
An interesting point. I hate wearing one, but in the last 12 months of mask wearing I haven’t got a single bout of any minor illness. Normally would get a cold, or sore throat or sniffy nose a few times a year. Nothing this last year, so maybe they have positive benefits unrelated to covidI think a lot of people will still wear them anyway out of choice
From my point of view, I choose a cold over seeing people with half a face but others will disagree.An interesting point. I hate wearing one, but in the last 12 months of mask wearing I haven’t got a single bout of any minor illness. Normally would get a cold, or sore throat or sniffy nose a few times a year. Nothing this last year, so maybe they have positive benefits unrelated to covid
I suspect that has much more to do with social distancing than masks.An interesting point. I hate wearing one, but in the last 12 months of mask wearing I haven’t got a single bout of any minor illness. Normally would get a cold, or sore throat or sniffy nose a few times a year. Nothing this last year, so maybe they have positive benefits unrelated to covid
Yeah, there's no way I consider a cold serious enough to insist on masks. Once the compulsion goes, I'm never wearing one again under any circumstances.From my point of view, I choose a cold over seeing people with half a face but others will disagree.
I’ll be honest amongst friends I may not have particularly abided by social distancing, I have carried on as normal, and in shops people generally come into my space as they always have done, so I’m not convinced social distancing is more to do with it.I suspect that has much more to do with social distancing than masks.
I hope so too, but if any restriction is going to be here for the long term - or even permanently - its masks on public transport. Though the Government say we need to learn to live with the virus (which we certainly do), I believe the Government are too scared to completely abolish compulsory mask rules and social distancing.
Doesn't the legislation requiring masks on public transport expire before then anyway? In that case removing the requirement in all settings except public transport makes sense given that there will be no requirement on public transport anyway because the legislation has already expired.According to the Sun newspaper, masks will be ditched in ALL settings on June 21st! All settings that is, except for public transport!
4-5 days before 21st June I believe I seen somewhere earlier this weekDoesn't the legislation requiring masks on public transport expire before then anyway? In that case removing the requirement in all settings except public transport makes sense given that there will be no requirement on public transport anyway because the legislation has already expired.
Hospitality businesses in a town experiencing a fresh spike in Covid cases have told of their concern as pubs and cafes prepare to open indoors.
Bolton has one of the highest instances of the Indian variant in the UK and is seeing a particularly sharp rise in cases among unvaccinated under-25s.
As lockdown rules prepare to ease on Monday, pubs and restaurants in the town are sounding a note of caution.
Some are worried about a return to the surges seen in the area last year.
Angela Baker, owner of Baker's cafe, said over the last week she was increasingly concerned about whether she will be prevented from reopening.
Concerns in Bolton as the Indian variant is apparently responsible for a surge in covid cases in the town and is making hospitality businesses here nervous ahead of next weeks' reopening indoors:
Covid: Bolton Indian variant surge leaves hospitality nervous
Pub and cafe owners in Bolton are apprehensive about reopening amid a rise in the Indian variant.www.bbc.co.uk
One would hope though that as rates are highest among the unvaccinated under-25s, that serious illness rates won't be alarming, and that as the vaccination programme continues things will improve overall.
Hospitalisations and deaths in Bolton have not as of yet risen at all. Bolton has not actually had any deaths for a fortnight. There's no reason to be worried if everyone is getting only very mild or even no symptoms.Unless there’s anything new, this seems to be “no news here”. The government has never given a stuff about under-25s getting it, the justification for restrictions affecting such age groups has always been the risk of “bleed over” into more vulnerable groups.
So if a spike in under 25s is a major issue now we have vulnerable people vaccinated with at least one shot, this would represent a major goalpost move. I think the government no longer has enough usable political capital to be able to get away with that - enough people have had enough now, and the vaccines have been enough to allay fears for most people. What’s left is the terrified types, and the ones who want to maintain their zombie lifestyle as long as possible.
According to the Sun newspaper, masks will be ditched in ALL settings on June 21st! All settings that is, except for public transport!
Let's hope the public transport requirement can be ditched soon too.
I hope so too, but if any restriction is going to be here for the long term - or even permanently - its masks on public transport. Though the Government say we need to learn to live with the virus (which we certainly do), I believe the Government are too scared to completely abolish compulsory mask rules and social distancing.
My concern is that there’ll be immense pressure for the government to be seen to be doing something about the rise in Indian variant cases. So I’m fully expecting this irreversible roadmap to suddenly very reversible.
Despite the fact that the link between cases, hospital admissions & deaths has now been broken.
Should be noted that the rise in Bolton is specifically in the Great Lever, Rumworth and Deane areas of the BL3 postcode. The rest of Bolton has much lower levels broadly in line with the rest of the North West. Also within this area there is virtually no outdoor hospitality. The rise is being blamed by the council on families coming back from India and Pakistan bringing the variant into multi generation households, then children mixing at school. It has not been stated whether this is due to them breaching the rules or that the rules don't work.The media are all over it today about the surge in cases & infection rates in the Bolton area, the urgent SAGE meeting today, and the fact that the 21st June final easing of lockdown & restrictions could be delayed. As it stands at the moment there is nothing to worry about the situation in Bolton, and Johnson in one or two of his press conferences back in February said they will no longer be concentrating on the numbers of cases & infection rates in each review stage. But I have a bad feeling about this bloody SAGE meeting today, they could get their way and come up with some claptrap as to why the next stages of the roadmap must be delayed, and there'll be a press conference this evening giving us the bad news. Please god, NO!
As there is virtually no pubs and no other outdoor hospitality within this area, it's mainly tight terraced housing, hospitality cannot be blamed at all on this occasion, however I feel the government may use it as a reason to delay hospitality opening and getting back to normal.
I think delaying the 21st June easing is possible. A concerning new variant was one of the reasons given for why they may delay the roadmap. SAGE may consider that B.1.617.2 (the Indian variant they are most concerned about) is sufficiently concerning that the roadmap should be delayed.The media are all over it today about the surge in cases & infection rates in the Bolton area, the urgent SAGE meeting today, and the fact that the 21st June final easing of lockdown & restrictions could be delayed. As it stands at the moment there is nothing to worry about the situation in Bolton, and Johnson in one or two of his press conferences back in February said they will no longer be concentrating on the numbers of cases & infection rates in each review stage. But I have a bad feeling about this bloody SAGE meeting today, they could get their way and come up with some claptrap as to why the next stages of the roadmap must be delayed, and there'll be a press conference this evening giving us the bad news. Please god, NO!
Were that to be the case, it would make Boris, Whitty & Vallance look very stupid, and call into question their judgement on the figures available.
This is the first big test of the government's stated desire to stick to the roadmap using 'data not dates' with the massive advantage vaccines afford us in breaking the link between cases and hospitalisations / deaths. If nationwide restrictions are extended based on the Bolton situation then the government is in for a world of hurt.
Why is it that whenever a significant review or relaxation date comes into view, SAGE go into panic overdrive, often landing with a new variant or other reason why the lifting of restrictions should be reconsidered or reversed or worsened? At times it feels like the panic is really driven by SAGE members desperate not to lose their place in the sun, and this not helped by things like the "Hug Guru" video recent aired on the BBC News channel.Indeed. If the final stage of the roadmap and the end of all restrictions for the whole country is delayed just based on the Bolton situation, this will be absolutely unacceptable. And if this does happen I hope many MP's, business leaders and the general public really kick up a fuss about this. I've just had a look at the stats for Bolton. There's been only 3 deaths within the past month! And only 13 people in hospital. They need to look at the hospital numbers and deaths stats, and stop once and for all this fixation on cases numbers and infection rates! The link between cases leading to hospitalizations and deaths has been broken!
We had better not be getting bad news later today......
First, the fact that a small portion of fully vaccinated people can still get infected is not news. That a tiny portion of fully vaccinated people *die* of Covid is not news. Vaccines greatly reduce your risk of infection, transmission, illness & death. They do not eliminate it. This is why it’s been so frustrating seeing tweets go viral for screenshotting vaccine trial results with "deaths: 0" in them. In a trial of hundreds or a couple of thousand people, you may get zero deaths. In the real world (315m people now fully vaccinated) you don’t.
We knew all of that already. Not one vaccine was ever found to be 100% effective at preventing infection, severe disease or death. The vaccines are still amazing! A @PHE_uk study this week showed 97% protection against death among the elderly.
But we’re now in a situation where every breakthrough infection is suddenly a headline, even when the vaccines prevent those infections becoming severe. And every death of a vaccinated person is reported as if it somehow shatters everything we knew. It doesn’t. We’ve seen breathless reports of an outbreak of the Indian variant in a UK care home, infecting 15 elderly residents who had been fully vaccinated. Those numbers would typically result in 5 or 6 deaths. This time? Zero. And that’s not random luck; it’s how the vaccines work. A particularly nasty variant might evade the barriers against infection, but the second line of defences — against disease and death — is much stronger. We’ve known this all along. As ever, @nataliexdean has a fantastic diagram illustrating this point. Lab studies will often show reduced levels of vaccine-induced antibodies, but they don’t come close to the magnitude of reduction required to evade protection from severe disease. So time after time, we see the same thing. Real-world data found the South African variant (thought to have similar levels of immune escape to B.1.617) produced a small drop in protection against infection, but no reduction in protection against disease. In India B.1.617.2 is dominant, but report after report finds the vast majority of breakthrough infections do not go on to require medical attention A small number do, but that’s what we’d expect where *millions* have been infected and millions vaccinated. And as tens and hundreds of millions more people get vaccinated, we’ll continue to get reports of breakthrough cases & clusters, and occasional breakthrough deaths. Just remember, these are the exceptions that prove the rule, and the rule is: vaccines provide enormous protection.
All of this is to say:
• I know people are more attracted to negative than positive news
• But it’s critical that we don’t allow ourselves to slide, constantly finding the next risk to worry about, even as we make huge progress, and the risks become fewer and less risky.
A year ago, we were in the midst of a pandemic with nothing to protect the vulnerable except staying away from one another, and if an older or vulnerable person got infected, there was a serious risk they could become severely ill or die. Vaccines have changed the game. Vaccinated people are protected as they mix with others, and if they get infected there is much, much less risk of them becoming severely ill or dying. To the best of our knowledge, this is as true for B.1.617.2 as it has been for other variants. Unfortunately some vaccinated people will still lose their lives (so don’t despair that we’re back to square one if you hear reports of this), but the vast majority won’t. Of course, unvaccinated people do remain vulnerable, whether to B.1.617.2, or B.1.1.7 or any variant, so it remains critically important that we vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. But please don’t fall into the trap of thinking that stories of breakthrough infections herald a return to March or December 2020. We didn’t have vaccines then, but we do have them now, and they work (including against the new variants).
And a final piece of advice: A single study of real-world vaccine efficacy is worth 10 lab studies of neutralising antibodies.
Stop the press, according to Prof Christina Pagel, we are not yet worthy of our soon-to-be granted further freedoms. She's not sure B.1.617.2 is not a threat and that 'moving to Stage 3 of the roadmap right now risks adding fuel to the fire'.
https://twitter.com/chrischirp/s ... 1999466501
Indeed, because its easier to offer solutions that keep subjects in boxes than it is to offer solutions that have more variables (i.e. people interacting). SAGE are currently in full panic mode as their dreams of being the kingmakers to the elimination of SARS-CoV-2 are falling apart, hence the increasingly desperate attempts to stop relaxations in their tracks.If people like her had their way we would never be granted further freedoms.