For myself, unless it's mandated I socially distance rather than wear a mask as it feels repressive and anti western to me. However I take your points....though I don't see the logic in stopping the young from being infected as not only will it happen regardless but that's how the virus grows weaker and they get stronger immunity....just keep them away from granny.

I think for many businesses it's been a lockdown by any other name....for example nightclubs or any other large meeting location. The coercion and requirement messages given out by government are destroying them.

I've said previously that the difference between a lockdown like we did and the warnings and messaging by a government like Sweden for example actually results in less of a difference than people would think......The damage done was still dramatic as both methods resulted in similar self censored behaviour.

My positions was that restrictions and protections should only have gone out to the elderly and vulnerable and that NHS provision be expanded to fit.....but I realise that this is a very old fashioned view when we clearly can destroy economies with no real concern for the future.....hell, it was fecked a long time ago....lets just carry on fecking it because we gonna love that inflation....nothing ever bad happens from that.

Edited by Stirlingsays (09 Dec 2021 10.42am)

Seriously? So we close everything down just in case our hospitals have to have patients.
By the way, the number of hospital admissions in the UK for the Omicron variant is also ZERO.

Edited by georgenorman (09 Dec 2021 10.42am)

For myself, unless it's mandated I socially distance rather than wear a mask as it feels repressive and anti western to me. However I take your points....though I don't see the logic in stopping the young from being infected as not only will it happen regardless but that's how the virus grows weaker and they get stronger immunity....just keep them away from granny.

I think for many businesses it's been a lockdown by any other name....for example nightclubs or any other large meeting location. The coercion and requirement messages given out by government are destroying them.

I've said previously that the difference between a lockdown like we did and the warnings and messaging by a government like Sweden for example actually results in less of a difference than people would think......The damage done was still dramatic as both methods resulted in similar self censored behaviour.

My positions was that restrictions and protections should only have gone out to the elderly and vulnerable and that NHS provision be expanded to fit.....but I realise that this is a very old fashioned view when we clearly can destroy economies with no real concern for the future.....hell, it was fecked a long time ago....lets just carry on fecking it because we gonna love that inflation....nothing ever bad happens from that.

Edited by Stirlingsays (09 Dec 2021 10.42am)

Yeah that’s it.

Omicron hasn’t been in Britain long.

When the situation is uncertain and could accelerate into a problem then unfortunately halfway measures will probably happen. But if or when the measures can be reversed then they should. Not dragged out for months.

[Link]

‘Top US health official Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that early signals about the severity of the variant were “encouraging”.

However, the potential for Omicron to result in less severe symptoms may be more a consequence of immunity than the virus evolving to become less virulent, according to Richard Lessells, an infectious disease physician at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.

Scientists stress that even if the country is spared a more lethal variant, Omicron’s contagiousness alone could cause large problems. Weekly hospital admissions of Covid-positive patients across Gauteng province are increasing at five times the rate of the fastest growth period during the Delta wave.

“If it spreads and transmits more efficiently, and you get more people infected in a short space of time, that is really bad news for your hospitals and health system,” said Lessells.

Jantjie Taljaard, an infectious diseases physician at Tygerberg Academic Hospital in Cape Town, said hospitals in the city were readying themselves for their own wave of Omicron admissions that could match the Delta wave after case rates increased six-fold over the past week.

Taljaard added that he suspected the hospital data from Gauteng “may be a bit skewed” because of infections in the early stages of the wave being more prevalent among younger people, who are less likely to get severely ill.‘

This is what I'm hoping for – a short sharp spike and that's that. But surely it's wise to be cautious until we know how it's going to play out, eg. in three weeks. Really don't see the issue in that

It seems people are cracking out as they think it leads to what happened last year, lockdowns, no christmas, pubs closed etc. Can't see it myself.

I think if I was a hospitality business owner I’d be thinking this is because of the government and too many unvaccinated. Actually a lot of the big occasions can still go ahead, but it’s the day to day business that’s suddenly ended with 2 weeks of trade and then Christmas to new year week possibly going to take slightly less, although try and book a table on the day anywhere is near impossible.