For goodness sake "Stop it"!

[Workingman]

Todays headline screams "Patients on ventilation beds rises 41% in a week."

So that's up from 161 to 227 and we are all going to die. Get it?

But hang on, a government spokeswoman said during the last wave: "The NHS now has access to over 30,000 mechanical and 15,000 non-invasive ventilators." So that is a take-up of about 0.75% of the mechanical ventilators, that is if all the new patients are on those machines - it is not made clear. The experts and media really do have to stop this incessant scaremongering.

We also get Prof. "Foghorn" Ferguson claiming that this winter the NHS will be 'overwhelmed' by Flu patients because this last winter cases dropped due to Covid restrictions so therefore we have lower immunity to it. Err, excuse me, we always have lower immunity to the next winter's flu variant because it is usually from a different one of the four strains known to infect humans - it is why we have a new vaccine every year.

Then there is the good news from research by PHE and UEA....

"The most obvious findings are that in all the age groups over 34 for England the modelled percentage of people with antibodies is over 90% and in the 60 to 79 age groups it is over 95%.

"This is remarkably high rate and most of this will be due to the impact of vaccine.

"What is perhaps even more reassuring is that in the rate of people aged 25 to 34 is 69% and aged 16 to 24 is 56%.

That was hidden in a post on Sky's Breaking News feed yesterday morning. No flags, no trumpets, no marching bands.... and almost impossible to find anywhere else.

[Kaz]

Ferguson should be renamed Cassandra!! Doom, doom, doom

I'm sick of the scare-mongering too - just get everyone jabbed, and stop trying to control us!

[Suff]

Scaremongering apart, actual cases are still climbing. 16k today. However the serious/critical number climbed by 23 and deaths dropped to 19.

We are in a totally different phase of the virus. The phase where we're eradicating it and it is trying to fight back and failing.

[Kaz]

Yes, we should definitely be watching the hospital admissions and deaths, rather than case numbers - they are irrelevant really if they're only causing minor illness.