22nd February - Roadmap out of the pandemic, lifting of restrictions.

[Huntergreed]

Over this weekend it’s becoming increasingly clear that the 21st June will likely not be the end date for social distancing or mandatory mask wearing. I’ve heard a number of advisors on over the weekend saying that these are likely to be needed for some time (including one on Andrew Marr saying it’ll be a few years until the global vaccine rollout is complete). This is also in-line with the culture secretary saying that he is looking into vaccine passports this week, and Nicola Sturgeon intending to keep going with FACTS advice after 21st June.

I would like to think that, if these don’t end on 21st June, they will end in October when parliament decides not to renew the COVID legislation, but at this point, I think it’s more likely that they’ll renew this for a further 6 months and finally decide not to renew the legislation next March, 2 years after the original legislation came into force.

Of course I hope to be proven wrong, but the government line seems to be changing and the goalposts seem to be moving once again.

 

[yorkie]

There will be even greater mass protests if so, and I'd be joining them and encouraging others to.

But I just can't see that happening; it would be political suicide.

 

[chris11256]

Over this weekend it’s becoming increasingly clear that the 21st June will likely not be the end date for social distancing or mandatory mask wearing. I’ve heard a number of advisors on over the weekend saying that these are likely to be needed for some time (including one on Andrew Marr saying it’ll be a few years until the global vaccine rollout is complete). This is also in-line with the culture secretary saying that he is looking into vaccine passports this week, and Nicola Sturgeon intending to keep going with FACTS advice after 21st June.

I would like to think that, if these don’t end on 21st June, they will end in October when parliament decides not to renew the COVID legislation, but at this point, I think it’s more likely that they’ll renew this for a further 6 months and finally decide not to renew the legislation next March, 2 years after the original legislation came into force.

Of course I hope to be proven wrong, but the government line seems to be changing and the goalposts seem to be moving once again.

Sadly I agree with you. I think social distancing & masks will be with us for years, definitely this year while people are still paranoid about murdering granny.

There will be even greater mass protests if so, and I'd be joining them and encouraging others to.

But I just can't see that happening; it would be political suicide.

Problem is that poll after poll has shown that people are always in favour of restrictions. It'll be a very long time to change this mindset.

 

[Class 33]

Over this weekend it’s becoming increasingly clear that the 21st June will likely not be the end date for social distancing or mandatory mask wearing. I’ve heard a number of advisors on over the weekend saying that these are likely to be needed for some time (including one on Andrew Marr saying it’ll be a few years until the global vaccine rollout is complete). This is also in-line with the culture secretary saying that he is looking into vaccine passports this week, and Nicola Sturgeon intending to keep going with FACTS advice after 21st June.

I would like to think that, if these don’t end on 21st June, they will end in October when parliament decides not to renew the COVID legislation, but at this point, I think it’s more likely that they’ll renew this for a further 6 months and finally decide not to renew the legislation next March, 2 years after the original legislation came into force.

Of course I hope to be proven wrong, but the government line seems to be changing and the goalposts seem to be moving once again.

I really hope not. I'm prepared to put up with these ridiculous over the top damaging hassly nuisance restrictive restrictions for another 3 months. But that's it. I(and indeed millions of others) won't be able to take all this if it drags on for much longer than that for some ridiculously stupid reasons. We've put up with all this for far too long as it is. All these restrictions have severely effected many thousands of businesses, many thousands of people's livelihoods, and millions of people's mental health. There is absolutely no justification atall why all this should drag on past 21st June. I'm still about 95% confident though that all these restrictions will actually end on 21st June. It's just that the time it is taking to get to that date is absolutely dragging.

There will be a vote in parliament this week on whether to extend the Coronavirus rules/laws/restrictions for another 6 months. I expect unfortunately that this will get approval. But this doesn't necessarily mean that all this will drag on until 1st October. It's just that the way it works is that they can only be extended for 6 months. The restrictions can still end on 21st June as planned.

 

[Yew]

better to have Britain we can freely roam about doing what we enjoy and need to do rather than risk a variant which evades the vaccine starting the whole cycle all over again.

I feel like you're preventing a false choice here, this isn't an either-or scenario, and our pandemic plans still suggest that by the time we've detected the mythical vaccine avoiding variant, it will be too late and already here.

 

[chris11256]

Does anyone know why the Coronavirus act legislation is actually needed? I thought all of the restrictions were done under the public health act.

 

[philosopher]

Virologists say it's effectively impossible; see this study for example..
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210127140137.htm

Keep an eye out for doom mongers who go on about different "strains"; preying on the fact influenza is difficult to get immunity for, due to the existence of multiple strains. Sars-CoV-2 has only one strain; variants of the original wild type virus are not sufficiently different to completely evade the immune response.

Infections will still occur but that's natural, expected and unavoidable; our immune systems will do the job in the overwhelming majority of cases.

There seems to be this view among many that Covid-19 is somehow a unique virus that will keep on mutating every few months to completely evade immunity and result in a pandemic that never ends. There never has been a pandemic that has never ended so why would Covid-19 be any different.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

But why, variants are just that, it's extremely unlikely a variant will completely evade the vaccine. As for government injecting capital, they're broke. I'm fed up with the governor continually spending my money in the name of this virus. It needs to stop, now!

Thats why take stakes not provide free money like they have done under furlough and business rates that have enriched many people at the expense of the majority.

 

[Bantamzen]

It was abundantly clear that last summer, allowing international travel was the death of us, and we paid for it dearly these last months. Likewise I'm fine with getting my life back soon it it means international travel is next year. My eurotunnel booking will just be pushed back further and further. It's been 5 times I've rescheduled it now!

Eh, how was international travel the "death of us"? What does that even mean?

Does anybody really believe for a minute that had we slammed the borders shut in March last year the virus would not have spread & mutated? If so I recommend doing some reading up on how viruses work, and how man-made lines in the sand do not magically stop them spreading.

However I do think that once vaccination and testings becomes widespread, an international journey would be no more risky than one within just one country. Why would London to Paris, for example, be any more risky than London to Edinburgh?

This is the six million dollar question. Why is the virus worse over the English Channel than here? The answer is it isn't. Once enough people have had the vaccine, which in this country is right about now, it spreading doesn't matter anything like as much as it did this time last year. That's because the vaccine is designed to protect the people who have had it. This obession with spreading rates & variants needs to end now.

 

[Cdd89]

Sadly I agree with you. I think social distancing & masks will be with us for years, definitely this year while people are still paranoid about murdering granny.

For social distancing, the ending will be social I think.

Thinking back to the summer, when it has always been “social distance where possible”, I recall quite a few arguments from nervous train passengers about someone else sitting too close to / next to them. “We’re meant to social distance” / “you haven’t paid for two seats” etc.

That will continue from many people for as long as the social sentiment is there, and businesses will continue social distancing for as long as it’s good business. In the same way that in places where dining has been allowed to reopen at 100% capacity, most restaurants in those areas continued to practice social distancing.

 

[DustyBin]

There seems to be this view among many that Covid-19 is somehow a unique virus that will keep on mutating every few months to completely evade immunity and result in a pandemic that never ends. There never has been a pandemic that has never ended so why would Covid-19 be any different.

Covid-19 is a “super virus” (in the eyes of some). It always makes me laugh when you see an advert on TV for say a disinfectant product and they proudly proclaim that it kills 99.9% of viruses, INCLUDING THE CORONAVIRUS. I mean that must be some clever stuff if it can do that....

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Does anyone know why the Coronavirus act legislation is actually needed? I thought all of the restrictions were done under the public health act.

The public health act enables govt to use regulations to manage the outbreak or in truth screw up our lives.

With Labour so impotent and other opposition parties on a zero covid mission there's no hope of it not getting through and although the likes of Baker, Brady and Harper won't vote for it they still don't really call the govt out only Swayne has the bottle to do that. The population are equally impotent and don't realise they will be the ones that will pay for this through jobs and taxes not the rich who just got a whole lot richer through this. Labour need to wake up the existential threat to their existence as BoJo and his entourage behaves like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn

 

[yorkie]

There seems to be this view among many that [Sars-CoV-2] is somehow a unique virus that will keep on mutating every few months to completely evade immunity and result in a pandemic that never ends. There never has been a pandemic that has never ended so why would Covid-19 be any different.

Indeed, and some people falsely claim that Sars-CoV-2 mutates as quickly as influenza, which is demonstrably incorrect:

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) by the numbers

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

SARS-CoV-2 is a beta-coronavirus whose genome is a single ≈30 kb strand of RNA. The flu is caused by an entirely different family of RNA viruses called influenza viruses. Flu viruses have smaller genomes (≈14 kb) encoded in eight distinct strands of RNA, and they infect human cells in a different manner than coronaviruses. The 'common cold' is caused by a variety of viruses, including some coronaviruses and rhinoviruses. Cold-causing coronaviruses (e.g. OC43 and 229E strains) are quite similar to SARS-CoV-2 in genome length (within 10%) and gene content, but different from SARS-CoV-2 in sequence (≈50% nucleotide identity) and infection severity.

One interesting facet of coronaviruses is that they have the largest genomes of any known RNA viruses (≈30 kb). These large genomes led researchers to suspect the presence of a 'proofreading mechanism' to reduce the mutation rate and stabilize the genome. Indeed, coronaviruses have a proofreading exonuclease called ExoN, which explains their low mutation rates (~10–6 per site per cycle) in comparison to influenza (≈3 × 10–5 per site per cycle; Sanjuán et al., 2010).

This relatively low mutation rate will be of interest for future studies predicting the speed with which coronaviruses can evade our immunization efforts.

It was abundantly clear that last summer, allowing international travel was the death of us, and we paid for it dearly these last months. Likewise I'm fine with getting my life back soon it it means international travel is next year. My eurotunnel booking will just be pushed back further and further. It's been 5 times I've rescheduled it now!

I do not understand this claim.

If you are referring to the increased fitness (often referred, perhaps misleadingly, as "increased transmissibility") of the N501Y mutation, this mutation occurred independently in multiple separate lineages in different regions of the world; it is present in the 'South Africa', 'Brazil' and 'UK' variants, and probably more (that we are either unaware of or the details haven't been published; probably the former, given no other country does anywhere near as much genomic sequencing as we do in the UK, with Denmark coming a distant second)

This is unsurprising as there are only so many ways that a virus could mutate to remain viable (i.e. not be deleterious to the virus); any mutations that are viable, and which gives the virus a fitness advantage, are surely destined to happen eventually.

The idea that if we isolate the UK from the world (notwithstanding any debate about whether this is even possible, given the UK is not and island and it would be politically suicidal to cut off NI from the rest of GB, which is a subject for another thread!) we will somehow protect ourselves from any such mutations is utterly flawed.

There is no escaping the new variants and the mutations they bring, but it really does not matter; as I've said before, the vaccines remain highly effective against all the variants, when measured against severe illness, hospitalisation and death, which is what really matters.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The idea that if we isolate the UK from the world (notwithstanding any debate about whether this is even possible, given the UK is not and island and it would be politically suicidal to cut off NI from the rest of GB, which is a subject for another thread!) we will somehow protect ourselves from any such mutations is utterly flawed.

There is no escaping the new variants and the mutations they bring, but it really does not matter; as I've said before, the vaccines remain highly effective against all the variants, when measured against severe illness, hospitalisation and death, which is what really matters.

The UK can provide a high degree of managing people movement by restricting international travel although I would concur it doesn't have the advantage of NZ in being able to enforce it effectively to contemplate a zero covid policy. So it is appropriate to have a regime of minimising movement currently and quite frankly 70% of the worlds population never leave there country currently so why do we feel it is our right to continue to do so given the climate impact.

At the moment id rather secure my freedom to get on with my life without a mask, without filling in a form to go into a pub, without having to sit distanced in a pub, without needing a test to goto a concert rather than having week on a beach. Britain can benefit hugely by staycations anyhow get a few quid back into the treasury coffers. Next year Europe will have sorted itself out and then i can get on a Eurostar and goto Amsterdam and enjoy the hustle and bustle without restrictions.

If things improve in Europe and other countries then im happy for govt to allow travel corridors again but again they've stupidly gone for a date not data approach and backed themselves into a corner.

 

[Cdd89]

The UK is a physical island

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an island?

why do we feel it is our right to continue to do so given the climate impact.

Apart from the fact that I am a dual national and have the right to visit my home country? If I’m not allowed to get the Eurostar to Paris then I’ll get the plane to Newcastle instead.

 

[greyman42]

Sadly I agree with you. I think social distancing & masks will be with us for years, definitely this year while people are still paranoid about murdering granny.

The vast majority are not paranoid about murdering granny. It is just a small vocal minority.
Masks will not be with us for years if the general public decide they have had enough of them and stop wearing them.

 

[liam456]

It would be highly disingenuous to suggest that opening up to international travel like normal wouldn't have affected the spread of mutations. (Just to be clear, I also don't believe in the scaremongering about them!) Many of the genetic families of SARS-CoV-2 died out last summer in the UK and new lineages can be traced to reintroductions from abroad.

Actually now I think about it, perhaps not tourism alone. Studying in Glasgow as I am, the scummy and underhanded way the university (and likely many others) encouraged students to come from all around the world with the promise of 'blended' learning was also a big factor. All for not a single day of non-online teaching. Great.

 

[Cdd89]

It’s also disingenuous to suggest that the U.K. (And especially London) can survive without international tourism. Using my preferred metric (the Tower Bridge quotient), I can walk across it any day of the week without having tourists shoving cameras in my face. While this is a delightful perk, it demonstrates that domestic tourism is likely not going to be sufficient to keep all the industries that rely on it turning.

With such a massive cost to stopping inbound tourism, the counter argument needs to be a bit stronger than “some people might have flu like symptoms for a couple of days”.

 

[yorkie]

At the moment id rather secure my freedom to get on with my life without a mask, without filling in a form to go into a pub, without having to sit distanced in a pub, without needing a test to goto a concert rather than having week on a beach.

But that wouldn't be the choice. By this time next month, we will have vaccinated a huge number of people, who would have built up robust immunity by 17th May, therefore even if some people did come back positive, it would not cause a problem. You could also mitigate against any risk by requiring unvaccinated people to take tests and/or stay at home for 10 days upon arrival back in the UK.

 

[liam456]

I love tourism as much as the next guy, honest! I also don't hold out for much chance to stay in accommodation in the UK knowing that everyone else is going to want to do the same thing.

 

[Yew]

I love tourism as much as the next guy, honest! I also don't hold out for much chance to stay in accommodation in the UK knowing that everyone else is going to want to do the same thing.

Indeed, that's perhaps the best argument, we just don't have the capacity in the UK. Never mind that Bognor Regis and Butlins are no substitute for Bermuda or Bordeaux.

 

[kristiang85]

I love tourism as much as the next guy, honest! I also don't hold out for much chance to stay in accommodation in the UK knowing that everyone else is going to want to do the same thing.

The key is to go against the crowd. There will be plenty of accommodation if you fancy a city break in Sheffield or some obscure market town in the Midlands. This is what I plan to do if international travel is definitely off (especially sheffield, I think it's the only major northern city I haven't been to yet). There are gems to be found.

The coastline, Cornwall, national parks, holiday parks, and capital cities will indeed be difficult though.

 

[Snow1964]

Although there are hints this weekend that masks and social distancing will stay for a while, own feeling is most will not comply from about June/July

The younger generation don’t seem to care on a night out, and everyone over 50 and vulnerable will have had 2 jabs. My hunch is people will see it like risk of flu or pneumonia, an acceptable risk that is not worth making your life miserable over.

As for going on summer holidays, more risky (and high chance of things being shut in other countries), but I do foresee a big boom in long haul getaways in the winter.

I have noticed cruise companies have suddenly redeployed ships to UK based itineraries from June to catch those vaccinated people desperate for a holiday.

 

[brad465]

How about this for something surreal, the Netherlands, despite being in lockdown, has run a trial music festival to see how they might be able to go ahead (mainly a video):

Can you safely plan a music festival during Covid?

A music festival takes place as an experiment in the Netherlands, despite the rest of the country being under lockdown.

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid restrictions: Can music festivals be safely planned?​

Covid restrictions: Can music festivals be safely planned?Close

A music festival is taking place in the Netherlands, despite the rest of the country being under a lockdown.
The two-day experiment aims to see if there's a safe way to allow large-scale social gatherings to restart, without increasing the spread of the virus.
The BBC's Anna Holligan went to the festival in Biddinghuizen near Amsterdam.

All entrants tested negative, but social distancing very much wasn't in place there and they'll be tested again in a week. While this isn't related to us directly, it could well influence our decisions on lifting restrictions when results become known.

 

[Bantamzen]

I love tourism as much as the next guy, honest! I also don't hold out for much chance to stay in accommodation in the UK knowing that everyone else is going to want to do the same thing.

For one thing, I can guarantee that if overseas travel is banned, even a couple of nights in a seaside cottage will cost many hundreds, meaning that holidays will once again become a privilege of the affluent.

 

[duncanp]

For one thing, I can guarantee that if overseas travel is banned, even a couple of nights in a seaside cottage will cost many hundreds, meaning that holidays will once again become a privilege of the affluent.

And if overseas holidays are banned, then every seaside resort, tourist attraction, pub and restaurants will be much more crowded than normal, which is exactly the opposite of what we want to happen.

I think that overseas travel will open up gradually on a country by country basis, depending on the infection rate, vaccination % and the presence or absence of "variants of concern".

I hope though that opening up a country to foreign travel will be a one way street, so that Grant Shapps and Nicola Sturgeon (assuming she is still the First Minister of Scotland by then) can give their COVID darts a rest, and we don't have the same situation as we had last year.

 

[Cdd89]

For one thing, I can guarantee that if overseas travel is banned, even a couple of nights in a seaside cottage will cost many hundreds

At which point people may as well suck up the Covid tests and home quarantine, and go abroad to wherever will welcome them against government advice.

 

[brad465]

There are a multitude of threads this could go into, with an alarming belief by the head of immunisation at PHE thinking we've got used to restrictions and thus they can last for years:

Covid: Masks and social distancing 'could last years'

Measures may remain until jabs roll out across the world, Public Health England's Dr Mary Ramsay says.

www.bbc.co.uk

People may need to wear face coverings and socially distance for several years until we return to normality, a leading epidemiologist has predicted.
Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at Public Health England, said basic measures could be in place until other countries successfully roll out jabs.
She also said a return of big spectator events required careful monitoring and clear instructions about staying safe.
The defence secretary has not ruled out the foreign holiday ban being extended.
Ben Wallace told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show that booking a break abroad now would be "premature" and "potentially risky".
The UK set a record for the number of coronavirus vaccine doses given in a single day on Friday, with 711,156 jabs and more than half of all UK adults have now received at least one dose.

I'm starting to wonder if we're being governed by robots, who have no concept of human affection/emotion and thus never need to hug anybody else or meet others to start a life and breed, which would all be impossible if the above lasts.

 

[Class 33]

There are a multitude of threads this could go into, with an alarming belief by the head of immunisation at PHE thinking we've got used to restrictions and thus they can last for years:

Covid: Masks and social distancing 'could last years'

Measures may remain until jabs roll out across the world, Public Health England's Dr Mary Ramsay says.

www.bbc.co.uk

I'm starting to wonder if we're being governed by robots, who have no concept of human affection/emotion and thus never need to hug anybody else or meet others to start a life and breed, which would all be impossible if the above lasts.

The likes of Mary Ramsey are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land if she thinks we'll have to keep wearing face coverings and socially distance(god I absolutely DETEST that phrase!!) for several years yet. She is not in the government, and the government doesn't have to do what she says. There's no way we can keep socially distancing and face mask wearing for several more months yet, let alone several more years!! All this dragging on for a year so far has done enough damage to businesses and people's lives as it is. A few more months now and they'll have to finally let go of this nonsense. We were told by certain members of the cabinet "These vaccines are our way out of all these restrictions, and the road back to normal life.".

 

[yorksrob]

There are a multitude of threads this could go into, with an alarming belief by the head of immunisation at PHE thinking we've got used to restrictions and thus they can last for years:

Covid: Masks and social distancing 'could last years'

Measures may remain until jabs roll out across the world, Public Health England's Dr Mary Ramsay says.

www.bbc.co.uk

I'm starting to wonder if we're being governed by robots, who have no concept of human affection/emotion and thus never need to hug anybody else or meet others to start a life and breed, which would all be impossible if the above lasts.

I can't see social distancing and masks staying beyond the point when the majority here have been offered the vaccine.

Nevertheless, until SAGE has its wings clipped, I can see rent-a-quote scientists popping up with stuff like this on a regular basis.