Is Covid plan B about to be enacted?

[Workingman]

The government says no, but that it is watching the Covid data carefully, so it probably is.

NHS management, and others, are calling for it to be implemented straight away. They want face masks, working from home, Covid passports, nightclub closures and no large gatherings to all be reintroduced given the latest figures.

It might even be called a 'Lockdown'.

I don't know what to think. I am double jabbed and about to get my booster. I have always worn a mask, sanitised, and tried to social distance. I feel OK. But I also see many who do none of those things, and they also seem OK. Does anybody really know what is the right thing to do?

[TheOstrich]

Does anybody really know what is the right thing to do?

Well Johnson certainly doesn't. The Government's whole history of dealing with this pandemic has been that of prevarication. Have they seriously learned nothing?
It's been obvious to everyone that the case numbers have been rising for a couple of weeks now. And they have now identified a new variant of Delta, which has again been around for weeks.

Yes, Plan B should be enacted now. It should have been enacted 10 days ago IMO.

I am double jabbed and about to get my booster. I have always worn a mask, sanitised, and tried to social distance.

Same here, but there are plenty who aren't / won't.

[cromwell]

The NHS always struggles in winter, and if they get away with this we'll be in lockdown every winter.

The economy can't afford it. The NHS can't manage it.
My wife's 88 year old aunt is having a new knee soon.
A local man had a hernia operation.
A young couple had a baby that was "tongue tied" and couldn't feed properly, so needed an operation.
Another child had glue ear and needed a procedure.
I've had a new hip.

All of these had one thing in common - they were all performed privately and had to be paid for, because the NHS either wasn't doing them or the waiting list was too long. Two years for the knee, for example. The parents of the young couple paid for their grandchild's operation.The glue ear needed grommets and cost £3,000.

I'm sorry, but I'm out of patience with the NHS, and the government too who are probably going to cave, again.

How long will the waiting lists be if plan b is enacted? How many more people will die of cancer because their treatment is "paused", or an early diagnosis is missed because their GP won't see them?

[Workingman]

Cromwell, I kind of understand where you are at with the NHS, but there is more to this than that.

Cases, hospital admissions and deaths have been rising, fluctuating up and down, for weeks. We cannot ignore these things.

What he hell do we do? Throw our hands up and say "Sod it" and carry on, or take some sort of action?

Both have consequences for our general health and the economy. Do you have the perfect answer? I don't.

[cromwell]

There are very few perfect answers to any problem.
But you are speaking to someone who in addition to the examples provided in my first post, has a daughter with a bad back whose GP staff refused to make her an appointment and who had to deal with attitude at A&E as she endured an eight hour wait, in pain, to see a doctor at 2 in the morning.
Or my friend whose 70 odd year old father has been suffering with psoriasis and has been promised an appointment with a dermatologist - next March.
I repeat, I'm out of patience with the NHS.

Although we spend a lot on health care ( the fourth highest in Europe) we came out only 30th in a global study of health services in 2017.

The pandemic has unfortunately revealed some bad miscalculations by governments both red and blue.
NHS beds 1989 - 300,000
NHS beds 2019- 141,000.

And now we have a pandemic and we don't have the beds available. Oops.

Also the old isolation hospitals around here like Aketon and Snapethorpe were demolished in the 80's and are now housing estates. Double oops.

Then our GP's who were working an average of 48 hours a week in 2001 are now working an average of 40 hours a week. Ooops again.

There is no easy answer for an organisation that has been mismanaged for so long.

In the short term. Long term is to look at who is outperforming us in Europe and copy them. The NHS has to be restructured because as it stands it is failing.

We have been lied to again and again. "Two weeks to flatten the curve". "We are not considering vaccine passports". "An irreversible path to freedom" (That's my favourite).

What should we do now? Difficult when you consider the data. Because apart from Russia (32 million tests), we're testing more than anyone else in Europe.
So yes, we're finding more cases - we're doing more tests.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/110 ... y-country/

Social distancing yes, masks on public transport yes, hand washing yes, being sensible yes, getting your shopping delivered as an option. To me that's all you can reasonably do. Locking down? Forget it.

How many times have we locked down before? Hasn't worked has it, if we're really in such a state now?
We were only going to vaccinate the vulnerable at one time, remember? Now we are jabbing 12 year olds - that doesn't seem to have worked either?
I've had my jabs like a good lad but as the vaccine passport doesn't prove that you are Covid free they are pretty much a waste of time too as far as I can see.

[Suff]

You know what we need to do right now? We need to STOP BLOODY TESTING unless the person tested is showing symptoms of Covid-19.

Yes we have a rise in cases. So tell me, how many Flu cases do we have? You don't know because nobody is testing. How many people are dying of flu right now? You don't know because nobody is testing and, even then, many of these people will have other conditions which manifest more.

How many hospital admissions did we have in January 21? How many serious or critical cases? How many deaths? How does that compare to today?

Here are the C19 cases since the beginning. This is what they're howling about.



Here are the deaths.



And before you say "no deaths are acceptable", just go back and review what Cromwell is saying. We are probably seeing more deaths due to our mania for Covid than we are from Covid.

The NHS is broken. We all know that. Don't give them an excuse to be worse than they can be.

Because if we keep on panicking and shouting about "something must be done", you'll wind up with everyone being like this guy.

RSV virus is on the rise as winter approaches and 'there is no vaccine' warns Dr Hilary

Why is there no vaccine?

In the UK RSV accounts for approximately 450,000 GP appointments, 29,000 hospitalisations and 83 deaths per year

Sad to say it, but 83 deaths a year are simply not enough for a pharma company to spend billions on creating a vaccine and certainly not enough for the NHS to spend billions a year on inoculating all children. But with the success of Covid in forcing people to wear masks, these doctors would have social distancing, masks and, if they could, lockdowns too. Until we get a vaccine for? Well just about everything that kills people really.

What we need to do is recognise what our government has recognised. The deal was this. We have no vaccine, we have masks, social distancing and lockdowns. We have a vaccine, we don't have social distancing, masks or lockdowns.

That was the deal. Now we need to live up to it.

[Workingman]

I know, let's deflect from Covid and go NHS mismanagement and RSV - not related. Let's sort them and all will be well, eh?

They are problems, true, but did they cause the pandemic and are they to blame? No!

The Covid pandemic is hitting health systems worldwide, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Nowhere is immune, but we are special, aren't we? Best we suck it up and realise that masks, social distancing and vaccines are a total waste of time and not for us.

Get out there, guys and gals. Ditch the masks and hand washing, get close and have a good old kiss and cuddle, etc. We are immune, invincible, and you know it makes sense. It worked ever so well during the Black Death.

If only we had 'stupid' and 'anti' vaccines all would be well. Sadly, we don't, so, so many of us will die. Sleep well. Have a very merry Xmas lockdown.

[cruiser2]

I will wear a mask, I will social distance, I will not go to night clubs-never did anyway, will not go to watch football matches.
I know I am a stick in the mud, but I am trying to stay safe.

[Suff]

What is safe? Also how long are you going to have to be safe? The rest of your life? Because this is not going away.

You took the flu vaccine with a 50% success rate in mortality, but didn't wear a mask. Covid vaccines have a 90%+ defense against mortality.

I took the vaccine to protect others, not myself, now I want to get on with my life. That was the deal and governments know it.

Even after all that what is safe? I nearly died this year and what it had to do with Covid is that I couldn't get to a dentist I could trust. So a dental infection triggered an underlying cardiovascular condition.

I still can't get to a dentist I can trust and now I have a double infection and I'm on antibiotics to try and calm it down.

This manic attempt to "stop" Covid is destroying the last year's of a whole section of society and it is a specialist power trip and a politicians get out of jail free card and we are letting them get away with it by assuming we are "safe" with masks and social distancing.

Go back and read the studies on masks from 2020. They stated, clearly, that universal mask usage would stop a second wave, they had proved it.

Well history proved otherwise. Only a total lack of social contact will guarantee that the virus doesn't spread and if you cannot do that then a total barrier with total disinfection removal will substitute.

The reason this virus has not been totally eradicated is because we will not do one or the other as the Chinese did at the beginning.

Everything else is an exercise in projecting fear in order to minimise collateral damage. The medical specialists make you scared then tell you what to do in order to reduce the impact.

Reduce, not remove! For them it is OK for you to die so long as they Warned you, because then it is your fault for not being careful enough and not theirs.

If you submit this to a simple logic examination, you see the ridicule it should engender.

When I flew in from France in August we all had to be separated, no more than 2 people in each row. Of course the row behind and in front was also two people. Therefore every time I leaned forward my breath was 6 inches away from the person in front of me.

Then we all had to wear masks ALL the time. We'll unless you bought a drink, then you magically became uninfectious and could take your mask off.

Then there are restaurants where you have to wear a mask to enter, exit and go to the toilet. But, magically, if you sit down viral load no longer exists and you can sit down for 2 hours and be "safe".

It defies logic and common sense. You are most definitely NOT safe and they know it.

The whole thing is a huge exercise in mass population control by the use of fear. The more they do this the more people with no need to fear will reject the vaccine and other measures.

They set out their stall as to why we should be controlled and they defined when it should end. We have met the end criteria and now they need to live up to it.

This fear mongering over yet another variant has to end. It has not been true for any other variant and it will not be true for this one. The vaccine's work for the vast majority of the population. So the very best move is not masks or lock downs or social distancing. It is to get as many people vaccinated and boosted as possible.

Let's face hash facts. The people dying of covid today are overwhelmingly unvaccinated. Many are vaccine refusals. Those who are vaccinated and die are as likely to die of a harsh flu or another respiratory viral infection.

Any day in the UK up to 1,000 people die, wearing masks and social distancing is not going to stop this. It is a fact of life and one, at our level of medical advancement, that we cannot stop.

[cruiser2]

Suff, I have just been to my dentist. He did some work on two teeth where the enamel was cracked.
Have been going to him for many years and he is very good. He only has private patients but worth paying for the treatment.
So if you are ever going to be in the area I am sure I could arrange an appointment for you.