Lockdown Debate Lol - Re Mother In Law!

[Smowball]

MIL is a highly intelligent woman, as is FIL. (But male lol). and they have always(accurately) based/predicted peaks in COVID cases, numbers on amount of ambulances they see per week, and on a specifi number of routes. And they have always been correct, including both lockdowns , the week before. They are both saying we are definitely going to have another lockdown announced end of November/early December. One of her key points is that people have all stopped wearing face masks way too early, and they ar3nt being enforced anymore, and that this country is nowhere strict enough on lockdown rules compared to other countries. (Oh and that Boris Johnson is an utter moron !!) What are your thoughts? BTW this is all light hearted and not a serious medical debate. Just wondered your thoughts on another lockdown?? Will it happen? : ) BTW I’ve told her that I’m asking my AB mates their valuable opinions : )

[roopower]

Just been to London for a couple of days and was surprised at the number of people wearing masks, especially on transport but in the bus queues as well.

[davebro]

I think TfL has a requirement for passengers to wear masks.

[New Judge]

A number of points raised are interesting:

//One of her key points is that people have all stopped wearing face masks way too early, and they ar3nt being enforced anymore,..//

There’s a very good reason for that. There is no legal requirement to wear face coverings in England. Businesses and organisations can insist you do and deny you entry if you don’t, but that’s it, but there is no "enforcement" available. I won’t go into the efficacy or otherwise of face coverings as it’s been done to death (mainly by me) many times.

Infection rate. The main reason the UK exhibits the highest infection rate in Western Europe is because it carries out around ten times more tests (per head of population) than the average of those other countries. The nearest to the UK is France (half as many as us). But despite testing half as many people, France has an infection figure of 80% that of the UK (7.1m against 8.8m).We carry out ten times the rate of that in Germany (who have 4.5m infections) and fifteen times the rate in Greece (0.72m). So, you test more, you get more positives. The UK has a positive test rate of one in twenty (5%). For every twenty people tested, nineteen are negative. Germany’s rate is one in twelve. There are enormous numbers of people being tested in the UK for no apparent reason. I was one of them when I returned from abroad last week. They are not ill; they exhibit no symptoms. But enormous sums are being spent testing them. When these factors are considered, the UK is not the pariah state of Europe at all.

Deaths. There is now a move to examine the way Covid deaths have been counted in the UK. Large numbers of people among the 140k deaths died principally of something other than Covid. Many of them were suffering from long term underlying health issues which compromised their immune system. This is particularly true among elderly victims. In normal years many elderly people die from pneumonia/bronchitis. It’s what finally “finishes them off.” Now they are dying from Covid instead. The three main causes of death (dementia, cancer, and heart disease) are each causing four times as many daily deaths as Covid (even counting the Covid deaths as we currently do).

Hospitalisations. Many people admitted to hospital do not have Covid when they arrive. They are admitted for some other reason. But they are tested whilst there and if positive their admission is recorded as a “Covid” admission. In England & Wales some 50,000 patients a day are admitted to hospital. The current admission figure for Covid is around 800. At the height of the pandemic last winter around 40,000 Covid patients were in dock across the UK. Now it is one fifth of that figure. There are currently more empty beds across E&W than there are Covid patients. There simply is no comparison between the situation faced now by the NHS and that faced in January 2020.

//Would we all adhere to the rules that would come with another lockdown?//

I doubt they would. Most people should have realised by now that “lockdowns” simply delay the spread of the virus. Open up and it spreads again, as it will forevermore. The problem is that, if the mistakes of the past are repeated they will not be able to go where they want to, whether they adhere to the lockdown or not. There needs to be a proper debate on whether the withdrawal of liberties and the forced closure of businesses is a legitimate tool to manage demands on the NHS because in my view they are not.

[New Judge]

No they are not. There were 8,693 people in hospital on 25/10 and 6,608 on 1/10. This is an increase of 2,085, or an average of 83 per day for the current month. The average daily increase for the last seven days has been 127. There has only been one day in October showing an increase of more than 300 and that was 25th. For some reason Mondays always see an increased number of just about everything, presumable because many of the NHS scribes are not at work over the weekend.

Once again, you need to consider that there are around 145,000 NHS beds across the UK, so less than 6% of them are occupied by Covid patients.

//I think TfL has a requirement for passengers to wear masks.//

It's a "condition of carriage" but it's unenforceable.

[New Judge]

^^^

That refers to this:

//8,600 currently in hospital, rising by about 300 daily.//