NWR new zero tolerance covid thread

Yes, but that's a long-term trend that's capable of being planned for years or decades in advance. Of course we should still try to improve lifestyle choices through education and encouragement, but lifestyle-related medical issues aren't causing a sudden, significant increase in hospital demand over and above that which was already expected. That's the fundamental difference.

Yes I take your point Bryan. However had the government enforced strict healthy diets, mandatory exercise regimes and alcohol & smoking bans for the overweight/unhealthy over the past 2 years, I suspect that would have made more of a difference to hospital admissions than forcing vaccination on the relatively small number of people who haven’t had one now.

Not that I’m advocating forcing anything - quite the opposite. My family are all vaccinated but I think blaming the unvaccinated for pressure on the NHS and pushing for mandatory vaccines is absurd.

Having said that I think all the restrictions are now absurd. We can’t all spend our lives being petrified of a virus that will be with us for many years to come, with a huge number of variants. Let’s be honest - if 3 jabs in 6 months for 95% of adults isn’t enough then there’s no hope! The unvaccinated are a cheap target for those who are still scared of the virus despite being jabbed numerous times over. No doubt the quadruple jabbed will blame the triple jabbed in time, it’s a circus.

It’s time to get back to living as normal.
 
I have absolutely zero sympathy for those selfish and ignorant morons who won't get their vaccines, and, barring the tiny, tiny minority who genuinely shouldn't for medical reasons, I would strap them down and force them to take it.
I have no sympathy either but forcible vaccination seems to me a step too far whereas forbidding the unvaccinated to leave their homes probably is not.
 
Enforcing a healthy diet and exercise would be completely impossible. It's a genuinely hard thing to do for most people who really need to do it. It's about a million times easier to just get people vaccinated - and that's obviously hard enough!

Now I'll say the unsayable: frankly I have absolutely zero sympathy for those selfish and ignorant morons who won't get their vaccines, and, barring the tiny, tiny minority who genuinely shouldn't for medical reasons, I would strap them down and force them to take it. Job done.

I have total sympathy with getting back to normal as soon as doing so wouldn't significantly risk swamping hospitals. If it could be convincingly demonstrated that that was the case tomorrow, then I'd agree with eliminating all mandatory restrictions, whatever the infection rates look like. But until then, swamped hospitals don't result in people dying of Covid particularly; they result in people dying of everything else.

I would say anybody who is still scared of this virus after being double or triple jabbed should lock themselves away at home and let everyone else get on with life. I have no sympathy with those who are so consumed by their own fear that they want to ruin other people's lives. Get yourselves healthy & get living!
 
Isn't that just part of long covid? I'm not sure what the distinction is here if the organ damage results from a covid infection.
I heard there was a distinction, but whether all the articles and stats make the distinction I do not know. I think organ damage is more straightforward if still potentially nasty, while long Covid can be a complex set of persistent symptoms.
 
I heard there was a distinction, but whether all the articles and stats make the distinction I do not know. I think organ damage is more straightforward if still potentially nasty, while long Covid can be a complex set of persistent symptoms.
I think that's what Eric is indicating in 3630, organ damage being more likely among the hospitalised.
 
I wonder what Gove's 'very challenging information' is?
My obviously meaningless sample of friends and acquaintances contains many people who have avoided infection until now who have succumbed quite quickly. I once more hope that we are at the beginning of the end rather than at the end of the beginning.
 
I don't think that Bryan was being literal, Will, but he will no doubt correct me if I am wrong. His anger is justified, though, not so much at the misled but at the vast constituency who mislead.
 
By the way 5-6 million unvaccinated doesn't sound a relatively small number to me.

It’s amazing so many of them are still alive!

Seriously though whilst vaccinations have obviously been helpful, the message is becoming farcical (if it wasn’t enough already).

1,265 Omicron cases in the UK - not a single hospitalisation or death yet. In fact not a single death from Omicron anywhere in the world, yet they are confident that “three vaccine doses are key” to protect against it.

It’s no wonder some people become sceptical.
 
1,265 Omicron cases in the UK - not a single hospitalisation or death yet.
Almost all of whom will be young, vaccinated, and have got it in the last 3-4 days. You can't draw any meaningful information from that at all. If Omicron is less dangerous, fantastic, no one will be happier than the scientists you seem to think are fear mongers.

But if it infects 20-30% of the population in the next month, which could easily be the case, putting 1% of them in hospital - which is already assuming it is less virulent than delta (and pre-fax covid was putting 10% of cases in hospital) is a huge huge number of people.
 
Like Bryan, I am angry and frustrated that others have not followed the rules and guidance - I won't go into the details of the changes that I have made to my life and behaviour and the things that I have done (or not done) to comply with the guidance and my assessment of the risk that I face of getting ill or more importantly infecting someone else with potentially grave consequences,

I received an NHS ping notification on Thursday morning relating to an "encounter" on Tuesday. I had already taken a routine LFT that morning which was negative. I thought long and hard about what I had done on Tuesday - walk to the underground, take underground to work, spend day at office (5 or 6 others were in) and then travelled home. I alerted those who had been in the office - no one has advised me that they were either pinged or tested positive. I can only conclude that I was pinged as a result of an encounter with someone on the underground but was it someone who was wearing a mask and has the virus been transmitted. I await the result of a PCR test.

It would help if the ping had arrived sooner - can someone who knows about these things explain how a computer system can take over 36 hours to process data and generate a ping and question why it did not give me a narrower time window for the encounter so that I could assess the likelihood that I have been infected.

Can I really be feeling that it is time to remove the benefits of being a participant in our society such as healthcare, social security and so on from those who put other members at risk?
 
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But if it infects 20-30% of the population in the next month, which could easily be the case, putting 1% of them in hospital - which is already assuming it is less virulent than delta (and pre-fax covid was putting 10% of cases in hospital) is a huge huge number of people.
You are completely correct that the potential for pressure of the NHS is the serious concern with omricon, and it is the reason for introducing new measures and encouraging vaccination.

Debate on the dangers of omricon, and appropriate counter-measures, should focus on this issue rather than the number of deaths
 
Can I really be feeling that it is time to remove the benefits of being a participant in our society such as healthcare, social security and so on from those who put other members at risk?
It has crossed my mind, but severe lockdown requirements for vaccine refusniks would be more proportionate, and also of more immediate benefit to the rest of us.

The Greek system of monthly fines for the unvaccinated is also an interesting idea - it could be regarded as a health insurance charge.

I normally regard myself as liberal and tolerant, but this does seem to be bringing out my inner ****** :)

WTF - the forum has censored my post - when I (with some irony) used an f-word that means someone who thinks that individual freedom should be subjugated to the common good
 
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I received an NHS ping notification on Thursday morning relating to an "encounter" on Tuesday. I had already taken a routine LFT that morning which was negative. I thought long and hard about what I had done on Tuesday - walk to the underground, take underground to work, spend day at office (5 or 6 others were in) and then travelled home. I alerted those who had been in the office - no one has advised me that they were either pinged or tested positive. I can only conclude that I was pinged as a result of an encounter with someone on the underground but was it someone who was wearing a mask and has the virus been transmitted. I await the result of a PCR test.
The app is working backwards, so probably the person who you had contact with only tested positive on Thursday..

That part of it worked fine for me, but I was annoyed how unjoined up the whole reporting process was - I kept getting separate pings created by different contacts who had all got infected from my beloved but super-spreading friend. And there was no way I could indicate I got it at X time and place and have been isolating since... A less cumbersome system would surely make people more inclined to do what they need to...

On the plus side LFTs have been consistent throughout the process for me. To be encouraged more thoroughly I think.
 
Admittedly the jury is still out but might the early indications of Omicron being less deadly (though more transmissible) be a sign of that the lethality of the virus is losing steam. If this is the case then Omicron might actually be a "savior" variant that spreads, immunizes, and provides herd immunity?

Let me remind people that I am no virologist or medical expert. Just curious about what other people think.
 
It surely makes sense to act sooner than later. If it turns out to be unnecessary then the very modest precautions suggested can easily be rescinded. I am comforted that those complaining are those who are always wrong about everything.

Says the person who was saying they were “letting it rip” and predicting 100k cases per day when restrictions were relaxed in July.
 
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