Covid - Gov Losing Control

[eve1974]

SAGE advisor When asked whether the UK was still in control of the spread of

: “I think one would have to say that we’re on the edge of losing control.”

So what (realistically) will happen If we go back to how it was in March?

Gov says a full lockdown won’t occur. But if “local” lockdowns aren’t working what is the alternative I wonder ?

[andres]

Well I'd rather live in a country where the government is at least trying to have some form of control. I think about the poor people in India and the other countries where there is no control over the virus and their countries are being decimated.

[mushroom25]

// Successful examples of controlling a virus include, but aren't necessarily limited to, smallpox, MERS, SARS, polio; //

in the case of smallpox and polio, "control" has taken decades, nay centuries to achieve. if "successful" control of COVID is to follow this example and be declared a success, everyone reading this, without exception, will be dead of other causes long before COVID is "controlled".

[EnsignRutherford]

We will not all be dead before Covid is controlled. It might take a few months or a couple of years but we will get there.

There are at least seven teams working on a Covid-19 vaccine. We will have a credible vaccine soon. Once we have a vaccine we can start to tame the virus and gain back control.

[Bazile]

How many people in the country are going to take any vaccine developed?

Are we going to see the compliance police out knocking on doors and frogmrching people to go and get vaccinated ?

How many people in each country worldwide are going to take a vaccine

For any vaccine to to be effective we would need near total compliance worldwide , given international travel between countries

Total compliance would only be able to be attempted in non truly democratic states

Can you see for example the UK government attempting this ?

[iluvmargie]

If this was my thread, I'd give Deskdiary at 22:59 BA!

[fiction-factory]

>I'm at a BBQ tomorrow where there's going to be at least 20 people, but on Monday, we'll all be knackered because it's going to attack any gathering over six.

That really is pathetic, DD. The only way to avoid the virus is to lock yourself away and meet nobody and disinfect anything you touch. (over the top, obviously). The more people in a gathering, the more the risk- and it grows rapidly- the risk from 12 people meeting is far more than twice the risk from 6 people. So 6 isn't safe, it's just far far safer than a gathering of 20. It was considered a suitable place to draw the line - it shouldn't be too onerous on most people and will help slow down the increase.

[fiction-factory]

Fortunately no-one with responsibility who knows what they are talking about is taken in by the nonsense some spout on here, whether it be through ignorance, selfishness, trolling or believing Covid is a hoax. Whether it's Boris, Keir, Nicola or the Lib Dem bloke or even the Greens, we'd be doing pretty much what we are doing now, possibly with even tighter restrictions if it wasn't Boris. It's the same all around the world- time to get real.

[jim360]

// in the case of smallpox and polio, "control" has taken decades, nay centuries to achieve. ... //

This is technically true but I feel it's somewhat misleading to start the clock before medical Science had advanced, at least as far as the "centuries" bit goes. We were lucky that cowpox existed in 1796, for example, as without that the control technique for smallpox amounted to "get it young and hope you don't die", but the decision to attempt to eradicate smallpox was only taken in 1959 and was, in essence, successful only 20 years later. That's still a fairly fast turnaround -- yes, it makes months look puny, but it also depends on where you start. Smallpox was endemic when we were trying to control it, and Covid-19 was not. Allowing an initially local disease to spread so widely is, by any reasonable measure, a failure. And if it's regarded as an inevitable consequence of modern life then perhaps it should serve as a good excuse to re-evaluate the way we conduct our lives. We could start, perhaps, by demanding proper hygiene and welfare standards in agriculture, along with a comprehensive international oversight to ensure that those standards are kept. And if that's regarded as impossible then so what? It's a worthwhile target, no?

[jim360]

// How many people in the country are going to take any vaccine developed?

Are we going to see the compliance police out knocking on doors and frogmrching [sic] people to go and get vaccinated ?
...
Can you see for example the UK government attempting this ?//

It wouldn't be the first time -- smallpox vaccination programmes were often mandatory. Still, I'd expect it to be voluntary with incentive at first, and mandatory only if the voluntary programme failed to contain the disease.

[New Judge]

//Still, I'd expect it to be voluntary with incentive at first, and mandatory only if the voluntary programme failed to contain the disease.//

They'd have to change the law then because compulsory vaccination (for anything) is unlawful. I'd hope there was sufficient resistance in Parliament against such a move and if there wasn't I'd hope there was sufficient non-compliance to make the enforcement of such a move impractical.

It is my belief that the virus has mutated. There is now a considerably high infection rate - about the same as there was in mid May. The average daily death toll then was 350. Now it is 10. The number of sufferers in hospital has remained the same for about two months at somewhere between 700 and 800. Time for a change of strategy, methinks, because it is clearly not necessary to keep everybody out of range of everybody else to combat a disease that claims about the same number of victims as road accidents do.

[lankeela]

Well Deskdiary if you are going to mix with 20 people then that is exactly the reason that this virus is spreading again - if 19 of those 20 catch is from one person then each takes it home to family and friends it won't be long before we are back in total lockdown. The virus may not know its the weekend but you certainly do.

[jim360]

// They'd have to change the law then because compulsory vaccination (for anything) is unlawful. //

Well, they'd only be breaking the law in a specific and limited way...

For the rest of your post: I can't comment on whether the virus has meaningfully mutated or not, but I would be cautious of saying that "the infection rate is the same as May". Back then we were performing far fewer tests. I wonder if a more appropriate comparison is probably to the situation in early March, when the disease was spreading but hadn't yet infected enough people seriously to the extent that it was really showing in hospital figures. Based on what we know or suspect about the "true" fatality rate, which is in the region of 0.5%, 3000 cases a day will probably translate to only 15 or so deaths daily for the time being (or in/around early October), but if the number of cases continues to climb then this will inevitably start to show up as more deaths (or as more hospitalised cases) in a few weeks or so.

That may end up being wildly pessimistic, and fingers crossed that, after all, there is no second peak of deaths; but, in either case, comparing the number of infections now to the number of infections in May is misleading because we were almost certainly undercounting at the time.