Autumn 2022 Covid wave peaked earlier than predicted

[greyman42]

Because the current government have been in too long and trashed the economy through ideology.

Even if that is the case, i am not voting for a party that is more likely to take my freedom away. Why would anyone else do so?

There are other issues to consider, a general election is not a vote on one single issue.

What other issues are more important than having your freedom taken away?

 

[yorksrob]

Even if that is the case, i am not voting for a party that is more likely to take my freedom away. Why would anyone else do so?


What other issues are more important than having your freedom taken away?

The current Government is taking my freedom away by obstructing a working railway system.

I don't doubt that Johnson's, Sunak's instincts have saved us from worse restrictions, but one can no more vote on the basis of there always being a pandemic than one can do so on the basis of it always being a world war.

 

[Southern Dvr]

I don’t know why I feel like I need to justify my earlier comments but I will.

How do we know how rampant the virus is without the testing? I’m not saying we should be testing btw. I’m not saying we should be in lockdowns blah blah. But what I am saying is that we don’t have the same wealth of evidence we used to have. It’s all very well saying ‘open the door and there it is. It’s endemic. Etc etc’ but we don’t KNOW that because we don’t have the evidence. I had covid, I thought it was a bad cold. Only because I had test kits left and a tip off from my mother who’d I’d recently seen and tested positive did I even think to use one of my tests from February time. None of this matters I suppose, unless the doomsday talk of new variants comes to fruition.

 

[Dent]

How do we know how rampant the virus is without the testing? I’m not saying we should be testing btw. I’m not saying we should be in lockdowns blah blah. But what I am saying is that we don’t have the same wealth of evidence we used to have. It’s all very well saying ‘open the door and there it is. It’s endemic. Etc etc’ but we don’t KNOW that because we don’t have the evidence.

The ONS survey still exists, and is still providing more information than we have for any other mild endemic virus. We also have hospital admission numbers, which are what really matters.

 

[yorksrob]

I don’t know why I feel like I need to justify my earlier comments but I will.

How do we know how rampant the virus is without the testing? I’m not saying we should be testing btw. I’m not saying we should be in lockdowns blah blah. But what I am saying is that we don’t have the same wealth of evidence we used to have. It’s all very well saying ‘open the door and there it is. It’s endemic. Etc etc’ but we don’t KNOW that because we don’t have the evidence. I had covid, I thought it was a bad cold. Only because I had test kits left and a tip off from my mother who’d I’d recently seen and tested positive did I even think to use one of my tests from February time. None of this matters I suppose, unless the doomsday talk of new variants comes to fruition.

Radio 2 seems to be mentioning more people going down with a winter bug.

 

[duncanp]

Radio 2 seems to be mentioning more people going down with a winter bug.

Which is perfectly normal in the winter, and would have barely attracted any attention in the media before March 2020.

 

[yorksrob]

Which is perfectly normal in the winter, and would have barely attracted any attention in the media before March 2020.

Indeed. Covid is now part of the warp and weft of British life.

 

[zero]

I didn't get sick once between spring 2015 and February 2020, even though my wife worked in a hospital from 2015-2019. I travelled extensively around the world during this time too.

In Feb 2020 I got a very mild cold, which may have been Wuhan-covid, I didn't see any reason to get a test, if it was even possible.

I didn't get sick between March 2020 and August 2022 despite travelling extensively (when legally allowed) in the UK and Europe.

Since August 2022 I have been sick around once every 2-3 weeks, I'm getting fed up of it really, they have all been quite bad leaving me with little energy for a few days each time, though not bad enough that I couldn't go out if I wanted to.

I have a lot of NHS free tests so I've been using them out of curiosity and none of these colds have been covid. I probably caught one of them somewhere in Europe, one somewhere in Asia and one in Australia, and the rest probably came from my son who started nursery in September.

 

[Enthusiast]

Here we go:

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[Richard Scott]

It is a problem, and we have an inquiry that ought to get to the bottom of it. Whether it will of course remains to be seen.



Because the current government have been in too long and trashed the economy through ideology.

There's been a Labour government that hasn't done this? So Starmer would be different then?

The current Government is taking my freedom away by obstructing a working railway system.

I don't doubt that Johnson's, Sunak's instincts have saved us from worse restrictions, but one can no more vote on the basis of there always being a pandemic than one can do so on the basis of it always being a world war.

Not sure any Labour government has been beneficial to railways either. Some examples of good investment by a Labour government would help here.

 

[yorksrob]

There's been a Labour government that hasn't done this? So Starmer would be different then?


Not sure any Labour government has been beneficial to railways either. Some examples of good investment by a Labour government would help here.

Tough.

The Tories have had over ten years to screw up the country.

The fantasy plan where we borrowed billions of pounds to spend on tax cuts wasn't a labour policy.

IF they believe they have a right to govern at this juncture, they should go to the country and get a mandate.

 

[Richard Scott]

Tough.

The Tories have had over ten years to screw up the country.

The fantasy plan where we borrowed billions of pounds to spend on tax cuts wasn't a labour policy.

IF they believe they have a right to govern at this juncture, they should go to the country and get a mandate.

But if you think Labour will be better then some solid facts would help. I'm not voting for them based on a wing and a prayer.

 

[350401]

Here we go:

MSN

www.msn.com

Once again, independent sage at it again - Daniel Goyal, a well known pro lockdown activist. I wish these papers would stop giving them air time. You can safely ignore this news article

 

[DustyBin]

I don’t know why I feel like I need to justify my earlier comments but I will.

How do we know how rampant the virus is without the testing? I’m not saying we should be testing btw. I’m not saying we should be in lockdowns blah blah. But what I am saying is that we don’t have the same wealth of evidence we used to have. It’s all very well saying ‘open the door and there it is. It’s endemic. Etc etc’ but we don’t KNOW that because we don’t have the evidence. I had covid, I thought it was a bad cold. Only because I had test kits left and a tip off from my mother who’d I’d recently seen and tested positive did I even think to use one of my tests from February time. None of this matters I suppose, unless the doomsday talk of new variants comes to fruition.

Your final sentence (my bold) is the salient point here; it doesn’t matter. Any “doomsday talk” is fanciful nonsense. There are of course people who’d love the pandemic to continue indefinitely, but it’s over. They need to find another raison d’etre (preferably one that doesn’t adversely affect the lives of other people!).

But if you think Labour will be better then some solid facts would help. I'm not voting for them based on a wing and a prayer.

For the first time in my life I’m not going to vote Conservative at the next election, however I can’t see one positive reason to vote for Labour. They appear to have nothing to offer other than not being the Tories.

 

[Southern Dvr]

That’s how Labour got to power in 1997 and how they’ll get to power again at the next election. They’re not the Tories. A lot of votes will come their way for that very reason.

For Labour the challenge now isn’t so much getting into power it’s making the best of it when they’re in. It has been over ten years since we had a Labour government, time is a healer.

Too many people were affected by covid that this government won’t be let off the hook for the behaviour of senior politicians. We are where we are with it now. The damage we will see from covid this winter is second hand now, the viruses that weren’t affecting us when we were all locked down will now be coming back with a vengeance.

 

[yorksrob]

But if you think Labour will be better then some solid facts would help. I'm not voting for them based on a wing and a prayer.

My view is that there needs to be a general election.

How people choose to vote in it is their business.

 

[duncanp]

That’s how Labour got to power in 1997 and how they’ll get to power again at the next election. They’re not the Tories. A lot of votes will come their way for that very reason.

This is one of the problems with Labour.

They are relying on people voting for them because, as you say, "they're not the Tories", rather than voting for them because they believe that they are the best party to take the country forward.

For example, the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves recently announced that Labour would abolish business rates. This would be very popular with businesses, but she didn't say what Labour would replace business rates with.

Similarly the party's health spokesman Wes Streeting said that a Labour government would demand performance improvements if it was to give extra money for the NHS (hear hear). Predictably the British Medical Association said that it was disappointed with this attitude, and that it was "not fair" to give GPs extra money and expect them to improve their service to patients, like being able to get a GP appointment without having to ring the surgery 5000 times and grovelling with the receptionist when you actually manage to get through. No doubt the BMA will try and put pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to get Wes Streeting moved to a different job, so that he doesn't become the Health Secretary in a future Labour government. I hope Sir Keir grows a pair and tells the BMA where to get off.

If Labour want to be a credible government in waiting they have got to sort out issues like these, otherwise they might last only one term in office.

 

[Southern Dvr]

If Labour had (or told us) their credible plans they could absolutely wipe the floor with the Tories. Of course this far out from an election they won’t because they’d just have them stolen or outdone.

However I do think they need to be clearer about their position on Unions. Rich Rishi every week goes in about Union paymasters, Keir needs to set the record straight that these unions are representing the working people of this country. The Booming Big Bankers of course boost the Tory Party, and again Keir could be going harder on this.

What doesn’t change in The Commons is that whether it’s Covid being discussed or other important matters of the day the behaviour of the MPs in there is exactly why this country is so broken. The pantomime booing and point scoring, it’s deplorable.

 

[duncanp]

If Labour had (or told us) their credible plans they could absolutely wipe the floor with the Tories. Of course this far out from an election they won’t because they’d just have them stolen or outdone.

That requires Labour to have credible plans in the first place.

If they don't present credible plans to the electorate, that leads me to suspect that they don't have any.

Take the example I gave above of Rachel Reeves saying that Labour were going to abolish business rates. The fact that she did not say what would replace business rates means that the proposal is nonsense, and just a soundbite to curry favour with the business community and some voters.

 

[bramling]

My view is that there needs to be a general election.

How people choose to vote in it is their business.

My concern is that we end up with a massive swing to Labour on the basis of them being “not the Conservatives” and the current - fully justified - intense anger at this government.

I couldn’t in the slightest blame people for voting that way, indeed at this moment I would probably vote that way, however we do have to remember this is also highly risky.

Firstly because, like Sunak as PM, Labour have received very little scrutiny. They have also done very little to demonstrate that they’re a credible government in waiting. This is one thing which is rather different to 1992 to 97, where by 97 Blair had built up credibility and on top of that had shown us a whole load of policies which would be implemented. This time round Labour haven’t really done this. Then there’s the massive elephant in the room, namely that Labour were fully supportive, if not more so, of the one policy which has had the single biggest contribution to this mess, namely the Covid response strategy.

I don’t have a solution to all this, it’s not a great situation for us as a country to find ourselves in. We have essentially been let down and failed by the entire political establishment, though of course we have to remember who voted these people in, both locally and nationally.

Labour may well be the least unpleasant option at the moment, however it’s not going to be a walk in the park. There’s *big* risks attached to a Labour win, especially with a big majority.

 

[Bikeman78]

We came very close to having a lockdown this year, and Rishi Sunak was instrumental in preventing the lockdown from happening



One of the reasons we came close to a lockdown was the government making decisions based on dodgy data and "modelling".



But what is worrying is that no lessons have been learnt, and the locktivists would have us under house arrest again if they get a government which is compliant and doesn't ask too many awkward questions. This is what concerns me about Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, which seems quite likely at the moment. (especially if he is in coalition with the Lib Dems and/or the SNP)

One year on, we still haven’t learnt the lessons of lockdown failure

The apparatus that was so eager to apply restrictions last Christmas is still there, ready to pounce again

www.telegraph.co.uk

Where did the 6000 deaths per day figure come from? It never got close to that before the vaccine, let alone after.

 

[duncanp]

Where did the 6000 deaths per day figure come from? It never got close to that before the vaccine, let alone after.

I should imagine it came from the SAGE random number generator, which was used to find a scary number that would frighten the government into ordering another lockdown.

Presumably the random number generator was programmed by Imperious Imperial College, famed for the pinpoint accuracy of their "modelling".

 

[yorksrob]

My concern is that we end up with a massive swing to Labour on the basis of them being “not the Conservatives” and the current - fully justified - intense anger at this government.

I couldn’t in the slightest blame people for voting that way, indeed at this moment I would probably vote that way, however we do have to remember this is also highly risky.

Firstly because, like Sunak as PM, Labour have received very little scrutiny. They have also done very little to demonstrate that they’re a credible government in waiting. This is one thing which is rather different to 1992 to 97, where by 97 Blair had built up credibility and on top of that had shown us a whole load of policies which would be implemented. This time round Labour haven’t really done this. Then there’s the massive elephant in the room, namely that Labour were fully supportive, if not more so, of the one policy which has had the single biggest contribution to this mess, namely the Covid response strategy.

I don’t have a solution to all this, it’s not a great situation for us as a country to find ourselves in. We have essentially been let down and failed by the entire political establishment, though of course we have to remember who voted these people in, both locally and nationally.

Labour may well be the least unpleasant option at the moment, however it’s not going to be a walk in the park. There’s *big* risks attached to a Labour win, especially with a big majority.

Pretty much every political party in the country was supportive of those measures one way or another.

We can't know whether another party will be any better, but I think that it's the electorate's prerogative to make that judgement at this juncture. I don't think that the current government has any authority to make sweeping policy changes

 

[greyman42]

Pretty much every political party in the country was supportive of those measures one way or another.

That being the case, why were Labour/SNP in favour of keeping restrictions for longer when the Conservatives were dropping restrictions and allowing businesses to open up?

 

[yorksrob]

That being the case, why were Labour/SNP in favour of keeping restrictions for longer when the Conservatives were dropping restrictions and allowing businesses to open up?

Because they made the wrong judgement.

 

[greyman42]

Because they made the wrong judgement.

That is fair enough then, but they need to say that or some people might think that they would bring back those lockdown policies if elected.
I think this would be a good move by Labour as it may put some peoples minds at rest.

 

[DustyBin]

Pretty much every political party in the country was supportive of those measures one way or another.

Yes but some more so than others, as possibly for reasons beyond simply “protecting public health”.

We can't know whether another party will be any better, but I think that it's the electorate's prerogative to make that judgement at this juncture. I don't think that the current government has any authority to make sweeping policy changes

I actually agree with you here in principle. Whether this is the right time I’m not so sure, but I do share your concern when it comes to the current government not having any sort of mandate.

Because they made the wrong judgement.

They did, but the enthusiasm with which they made it doesn’t bode well in my opinion. Have they learnt from it? I’m not convinced.

That is fair enough then, but they need to say that or some people might think that they would bring back those lockdown policies if elected.
I think this would be a good move by Labour as it may put some peoples minds at rest.

I agree. We absolutely don’t want a government that would play fast and loose with our freedom at the first sign of the next “crisis”.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes but some more so than others, as possibly for reasons beyond simply “protecting public health”.



I actually agree with you here in principle. Whether this is the right time I’m not so sure, but I do share your concern when it comes to the current government not having any sort of mandate.



They did, but the enthusiasm with which they made it doesn’t bode well in my opinion. Have they learnt from it? I’m not convinced.



I agree. We absolutely don’t want a government that would play fast and loose with our freedom at the first sign of the next “crisis”.

We also have to remember that there was a high degree of public support for restrictions at the time. I don't think a future government would have that next time around

 

[DustyBin]

We also have to remember that there was a high degree of public support for restrictions at the time. I don't think a future government would have that next time around

True, but the public supported them because they were told to (or convinced to) by the government. If people believe they need to follow instructions in order to keep themselves and their loved ones safe, most will do it. There may be a degree of scepticism next time depending on the nature of the threat, but when push comes to shove I suspect most people will fold.

 

[Richard Scott]

Because they made the wrong judgement.

Then the question is why? Many people realised by this point that restrictions weren't required or having very limited effect at best so surely, if it wasn't a political motive, then someone in the Labour Party would have been very vocal about it? I'm afraid saying it was a wrong judgement just doesn't wash with me.