Labour are the party of bringing in lockdowns early before the virus gets a grip, so restrictions don't have to go on for as long, rather than dithering and making matters orders of magnitude worse.
Yeah, and that worked well for countries like the Czech Republic, didn't it?
Labour are the party of competent test, trace and support systems run by local authority health professionals rather than dodgy contracts to Ministers' mates
Test & Trace is overrated in my opinion and this is a hypothetical argument. I don't really see the need to get into a hypothetical argument regarding whether Labour would have done a better job, at least not in this thread. If you really want that hypothetical argument, feel free to create a new thread, but we will never be able to reach a conclusion.
Labour are the party of funding catch-up education properly in line with other advanced countries.
Are you suggesting you want to force teachers to work longer days and/or work during the holidays? Again you should make this argument in a new thread as it's a whole new topic.
Schools should never have closed; they closed because of the pressure put on Labour voting type people who demanded schools closed. Of course the Tories are to blame for the decision but Labour are hardly innocent.
Labour are the party of a global vaccination programme so everyone is protected,
If you think Labour's vaccination programme would be better than the Tories, feel free to create a new thread.
international travel can resume
It will resume with or without Labour's involvement
and we don't get more variants in the future.
This is an absurd argument. The virus is evolving through natural selection processes to increase its fitness in humans. This process cannot be prevented. Mutations are inevitable.
Comparing the "death rate" from Covid with the death rate from road accidents doesn't tell us anything useful. Road accidents aren't infectious. If you look at the number of deaths the most recent weekly figure for Covid is 78, and in recent years the number of deaths per week from road accidents has been about 35.
But immunity from Coronaviruses against serious illnesses is excellent; there is no way to gain immunity from road accidents. Your argument is utterly flawed.
Hey, I'm sorry for my words - they were unnecessarily antagonistic.
Glad you have apologised; unfortunately many people do not understand the serious mental health issues that can arise from the mandating of masks and the way some people have been excluded from full participation in society in the past year.
Do you know you can already meet and socialise indoors? You only need a mask on the way in - once seated in a cafe or pub you can take it off. If you have a medical reason for not wearing a mask you're very very unlikely to receive abuse.
Some people will dish abuse to anyone who is not wearing a lanyard but not everyone wants to be labelled and not everyone can cope with the anxiety of being challenged.
I would be very surprised if restrictions aren't lifted on 19th July. We've been through so much but we're nearly there - and to re-emphasise, most restrictions are already lifted. For all the concern we've got about the final restrictions being removed we are in a far far better place than back in January.
Given all vulnerable people who wanted to be vaccinated have been, there is no justification for restrictions to continue for 4 more weeks.
Oh please spare us the histrionics. Most restrictions have already been lifted. What's stopping you socialising at the moment? And masks - yes they're annoying but they are hardly a major imposition.
For most people they are not, but some people suffer from anxieties which means they are.
The vaccine is effective against the virus.
I agree, therefore there is no justification for restrictions to continue. Those who think restrictions should continue are denying the effectiveness of the vaccine in my opinion.
In a few weeks the rollout will have reached enough people so that, hopefully, the Covid risk is reduced to levels typical of other hazards (such as road traffic, or flu) and that will allow the few remaining restrictions to be removed.
If you look at the age profile of those who have died or become seriously ill, you will see it is incredibly biased towards older people, but they have already been offered the vaccine. Those who have chosen not to be vaccinated who are eligible for one have made a very poor choice in my opinion but we cannot allow them to hold us back.
At the moment the death rate from Covid is about the same as people losing their life in road traffic collisions - daily. Should we not be stopping people using motor vehicles or is it OK to die on the roads but not because of Covid?
Our culture and society deem road deaths to be acceptable, it's as simple as that. I don't see how anyone can deny that.