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Should restrictions be eased fully if Indian Variant case rates do not decline before June 21st?

If case rates do not decline before June 21st, what do you think should happen with the roadmap?

  • Go ahead with easing of all Covid restrictions on June 21st, assuming vaccinations are ramped up

    Votes: 174 52.9%
  • Go ahead with stage 4 of easing restrictions on June 21st, but keep masks and WFH guidance

    Votes: 29 8.8%
  • Ease some stage 4 restrictions on June 21st, but keep others for longer

    Votes: 36 10.9%
  • Postpone stage 4 easing to a later date in the worst affected hotspots

    Votes: 17 5.2%
  • Postpone stage 4 easing to a later date everywhere

    Votes: 47 14.3%
  • Impose new localised restrictions in the worst affected hotspots

    Votes: 7 2.1%
  • Impose new national restrictions

    Votes: 11 3.3%
  • Other (please specify)

    Votes: 8 2.4%

  • Total voters
    329
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MattRat

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Hancock had to field several questions from Torys tonight about what levels do they consider to be safe - all comprehensively waffled around. Deliberate approach to allow them to do what they want.
Doesn't matter anyway if they revolt. Why even pretend to them? Labour guarantees a majority in the house.
 
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Nicholas Lewis

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Doesn't matter anyway if they revolt. Why even pretend to them? Labour guarantees a majority in the house.
Indeed its was rather depressing to listen to Ashworth attempting a demolition derby on the government and for him to them pull the rug out from underneath himself by closing his statement by saying we will support these measures.
 

kristiang85

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I think we should all remember that any death mentioned on this Covid-19 thread is just not a statistic to the family who have lost a loved one.

Let us not forsake humanitarian feelings, please.

Very true, but by the same token, let's not forget the other 1597 deaths today (on average) are less important because they didn't involve COVID. And the rates of deaths from those other causes are only going to go up.

For example, 18 people a day on average commit suicide, about twice the average COVID deaths at the moment, and this will surely have increased this year due to the government's continued flip flopping and mixed messaging. Young people are especially vulnerable to poor mental health, and they are the ones being most affected by these continued restrictions - be it students trying to get through university or young people in hospitality jobs being laid off.
 

MattRat

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Indeed its was rather depressing to listen to Ashworth attempting a demolition derby on the government and for him to them pull the rug out from underneath himself by closing his statement by saying we will support these measures.
Ashworth? Is he the new Labour leader ;)
 

initiation

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If you want to see SAGE's workings, here you go: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...asing-restrictions-roadmap-step-4-9-june-2021

David Paton on Twitter explains this much better than I can...


https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1404525343017426955

Reading this again I only now realise this is modelling a central estimate for daily new infections in England of 100k per day...by NEXT MONDAY! Insane.

So for any of the pro-lockdown lot here, or those saying we should unquestionably follow SAGE becuase they are scientists: £100 bet, if either actal tests, ZOE, ONS, or REACT reach 100k on this date (21st June), then £100 to a charity of your choice. If it doesn't happen - then you donate to a charity of my choice. Proof to be posted in the form of screenshots here.

The Government are making hugely damaging actions on the basis of these decisions so the models must be reliable right? Should be an easy win for somebody then.
[mods if such a thing is not allowed please let me know and I will remove it]
 

MattRat

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Reading this again I only now realise this is modelling a central estimate for daily new infections in England of 100k per day...by NEXT MONDAY! Insane.

So for any of the pro-lockdown lot here, or those saying we should unquestionably follow SAGE becuase they are scientists: £100 bet, if either actal tests, ZOE, ONS, or REACT reach 100k on this date (21st June), then £100 to a charity of your choice. If it doesn't happen - then you donate to a charity of my choice. Proof to be posted in the form of screenshots here.

The Government are making hugely damaging actions on the basis of these decisions so the models must be reliable right? Should be an easy win for somebody then.
[mods if such a thing is not allowed please let me know and I will remove it]
And that's infections, not deaths. Given that more infectious diseases are less deadly (the host survives to spread the disease), to get to that number, from here, there would be need to be an even more infectious strain, which would then result in 0 deaths.....
 

Bayum

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And that's infections, not deaths. Given that more infectious diseases are less deadly (the host survives to spread the disease), to get to that number, from here, there would be need to be an even more infectious strain, which would then result in 0 deaths.....
Or the same virulent strain which causes death. Remember, the figures now will take two to three weeks to end up in hospital, if they do.
 

Bertie the bus

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If you want to see SAGE's workings, here you go: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...asing-restrictions-roadmap-step-4-9-june-2021

David Paton on Twitter explains this much better than I can...




It is just beyond parody now. Surely anybody with a modicum of common sense looking at that can see it's bonkers?
He makes some quite reasonable points but you also have to apply some critical thinking to what he says regardless of whether what he says is what you want to hear.

For a start he says 'For reference the ONS estimate daily infections in England peaked in December 2020 at 107k per day. That's in winter and with virtually no-one vaccinated.'

No doubt that is true but in December the whole of the country had restrictions and a significant part of it had severe restrictions not much short of a lockdown so whether it was winter or not you can't compare infections in December to a situation where all legal restrictions are removed.
 

Pete_uk

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Just seen a Twitter post from a lady in I think Portugal. She was in a nightclub sipping the lemonade or whatever and dancing the night away until 1am.

I struggle to think when total normality will resume. A few months after July the annual virus uptick will start again.

Anyone know how long before the jab rollout gets to the point where, I dunno, 90% of the population is vaccinated?
 

Failed Unit

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Just seen a Twitter post from a lady in I think Portugal. She was in a nightclub sipping the lemonade or whatever and dancing the night away until 1am.

I struggle to think when total normality will resume. A few months after July the annual virus uptick will start again.

Anyone know how long before the jab rollout gets to the point where, I dunno, 90% of the population is vaccinated?
I don’t think it will ever get to 90%. Currently no plans to vaccinate school children and couple this with the people that have chosen no to I think it will stay high 80s which is about where we are on the 1st.

79.2% 1st
56% both.
Gov website.

we are going to have to learn to live with it. We can’t lock ourselves away every time the numbers go up and it is unfair to permanently close night clubs etc. Poverty will kill many more the COVID if we don’t try to get back to normal.
 
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Failed Unit

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I see headlines in Scotland. They are talking about restrictions until September. So I guess if Boris isn’t still misleading us. We have a lot to be happy about.
 

duncanp

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I see headlines in Scotland. They are talking about restrictions until September. So I guess if Boris isn’t still misleading us. We have a lot to be happy about.

Has anyone else noticed that the new date for the release of all restrictions in England coincides with the start of the Glasgow Fair fortnight? Glasgow Central station could be very busy from July 19th.

If "Freedom Day" does go ahead in England on that date, there are going to be an awful lot of Scottish people heading South of the border to do things that will still be "illegal" in Scotland.

They will be taking their money with them, and helping the English economy to recover from the effects of COVID-19.

I wonder if Mrs Murrell realises that, or even cares about the consequence for Scottish businesses.
 

Yew

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I think we should all remember that any death mentioned on this Covid-19 thread is just not a statistic to the family who have lost a loved one.

Let us not forsake humanitarian feelings, please.
But let us also remember that 1,700 people die. every single day, and we do not impinge upon the lives of others in an attempt to get this number to Zero.
 

Smidster

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On the whole I support the short delay - We know that the Government have allowed in a variant which is somewhat resistant to existing vaccines - in particular to a single dose and therefore it does seem to make sense to give that extra bit of time with relatively limited rules just to make absolutely sure we never have to go backwards.

What will be fun to see is if England do well in the football - The final is on Sunday July 11th with the final at Wembley. If England were to win then good luck to anyone who would try and enforce any restrictions!
 

Yew

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On the whole I support the short delay - We know that the Government have allowed in a variant which is somewhat resistant to existing vaccines - in particular to a single dose and therefore it does seem to make sense to give that extra bit of time with relatively limited rules just to make absolutely sure we never have to go backwards.
The vaccines are still incredibly effective, and we need firm and undelayable commitments, none of this wishy-washy "we'll see what our neurotic testing regime says". Many suggest that continuing restrictions is 'cautious', but I would argue it is Illegal; the Public Health Act mandates the the Government use the 'least restrictive means possible', can we really say that these restrictions meet such a test, and have clear evidence of efficacy , and an impact assessment?
 

Pete_uk

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The British Grand Prix at Silverstone takes place a day before the new opening date. The BRDC who organises the event are in talks with the government to make it a test event. There could be up to 150,000 if it's opened up to capacity with up to 250,000 over the three days.
Talks are ongoing but hopefully there will be a large crowd there.

As far as I know there have been very little effect from the events that have opened up so far.
 

DelayRepay

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The British Grand Prix at Silverstone takes place a day before the new opening date. The BRDC who organises the event are in talks with the government to make it a test event. There could be up to 150,000 if it's opened up to capacity with up to 250,000 over the three days.
Talks are ongoing but hopefully there will be a large crowd there.

As far as I know there have been very little effect from the events that have opened up so far.

These extra test events seem a bit of a fudge (see also Andrew Lloyd Webber). We've done the test events, concluded there's minimal risk, so the only purpose of more test events seems to be to allow them to go ahead without the government actually lifting restrictions.
 

duncanp

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On the whole I support the short delay - We know that the Government have allowed in a variant which is somewhat resistant to existing vaccines - in particular to a single dose and therefore it does seem to make sense to give that extra bit of time with relatively limited rules just to make absolutely sure we never have to go backwards.

What will be fun to see is if England do well in the football - The final is on Sunday July 11th with the final at Wembley. If England were to win then good luck to anyone who would try and enforce any restrictions!

Never mind about the final, there is the England vs Scotland game at Wembley on Friday.

About 3,000 Scottish fans have tickets, but there are rumoured to be about 20,000 people planning to travel from Scotland to London, despite no official "fan zone" being organised for them. (Well done Sadiq Khant)

Some Scottish fans who have made reservations to watch the game in pubs in London have had their reservations cancelled at the last minute.

Trafalgar Square is going to be a "socially distanced ticketed fan zone" for "key workers only". (Good luck to whoever is going to have to enforce that)

As a result, many Scottish fans are rumoured to be gathering in Hyde Park, which will no doubt require a big clean up operation at the weekend.

My father was a policeman in London during the 1970s and 1980s, and whenever Scotland played England at Wembley the police much preferred to have all the Scottish fans congregating in Trafalgar Square, and tolerated them jumping in the fountains etc, because that was much easier for them than having the fans running all over the West End causing havoc.
 

nlogax

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Maybe time to adjust the title on this thread and resubmit the poll? I'm sure there'd be different responses with July 19th becoming the new June 21st.
 

VauxhallandI

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Never mind about the final, there is the England vs Scotland game at Wembley on Friday.

About 3,000 Scottish fans have tickets, but there are rumoured to be about 20,000 people planning to travel from Scotland to London, despite no official "fan zone" being organised for them. (Well done Sadiq Khant)

Some Scottish fans who have made reservations to watch the game in pubs in London have had their reservations cancelled at the last minute.

Trafalgar Square is going to be a "socially distanced ticketed fan zone" for "key workers only". (Good luck to whoever is going to have to enforce that)

As a result, many Scottish fans are rumoured to be gathering in Hyde Park, which will no doubt require a big clean up operation at the weekend.

My father was a policeman in London during the 1970s and 1980s, and whenever Scotland played England at Wembley the police much preferred to have all the Scottish fans congregating in Trafalgar Square, and tolerated them jumping in the fountains etc, because that was much easier for them than having the fans running all over the West End causing havoc.
Good job the English fans are so saintly
 

lewesroad

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I don’t think it will ever get to 90%. Currently no plans to vaccinate school children and couple this with the people that have chosen no to I think it will stay high 80s which is about where we are on the 1st.

79.2% 1st
56% both.
Gov website.

we are going to have to learn to live with it. We can’t lock ourselves away every time the numbers go up and it is unfair to permanently close night clubs etc. Poverty will kill many more the COVID if we don’t try to get back to normal.
These figures are for the adult population. When children are included:

39 % of the population have received no vaccine

61 % have received at least one dose

45 % have had two doses
 
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initiation

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Is there any medically proved fact that children are less susceptable to the effects of the Covid-19 virus, as the comment suggesting that be the case has been used very many times in media outlets.

The exact Scientific reason why children are less susceptable? Not that I am aware of.

But they clearly are:

2021 deaths 'involving' COVID according to the ONS
All ages: 57,537
Ages 0-19: 17

If you are suggesting that children could be, I suggest you back up that assertion.
 

nlogax

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Is there any medically proved fact that children are less susceptable to the effects of the Covid-19 virus, as the comment suggesting that be the case has been used very many times in media outlets.

Well established in medical science that they are less susceptible. The 'why' is now the focus of research.

https://adc.bmj.com/content/106/5/429

Why is COVID-19 less severe in children? A review of the proposed mechanisms underlying the age-related difference in severity of SARS-CoV-2 infections
 

LAX54

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In February when the 'cautious but irreversible' roadmap was announced he was immediately questioned afterwards and said it could indeed be reversible if the difficult decision needed to be made.

Ask me on 20th July whether I believe him.
Interestingly, when Mt Gove was being interviewed this morning about the delay, he said that on the 19th, that they hoped to at least 'ease the restrictions'
was he letting something slip there by mistake ?

I don't know how low they want it to be honest. There were just 3 deaths today. When it hits 0 I wonder what the excuse will be?
Ian Duncan Smith said this morning on TV, that the delay was bonkers, and that there was really not a not of evidence to back it up, also quoting the 'death rate' of 3, he was also very scathing about the forecasts that SAGE come up with
 

initiation

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He makes some quite reasonable points but you also have to apply some critical thinking to what he says regardless of whether what he says is what you want to hear.

For a start he says 'For reference the ONS estimate daily infections in England peaked in December 2020 at 107k per day. That's in winter and with virtually no-one vaccinated.'

No doubt that is true but in December the whole of the country had restrictions and a significant part of it had severe restrictions not much short of a lockdown so whether it was winter or not you can't compare infections in December to a situation where all legal restrictions are removed.

So 100k per day by next monday is reasonable then? My bet further up the thread is still open...

This all hinges on the assumption that invasive NPIs are the main thing holding the virus back. With academic papers like the one from Stanford and then real world evidence from places like Florida, Texas etc.. showing no dramatic increases following 'release', that assumption has to be doubted.
It would have been an interesting excercise to ask SAGE to run a model for Florida/Texas at the time they announced full release - I doubt SAGE would have predicted cases declining as they did.
 

Failed Unit

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On the whole I support the short delay - We know that the Government have allowed in a variant which is somewhat resistant to existing vaccines - in particular to a single dose and therefore it does seem to make sense to give that extra bit of time with relatively limited rules just to make absolutely sure we never have to go backwards.

What will be fun to see is if England do well in the football - The final is on Sunday July 11th with the final at Wembley. If England were to win then good luck to anyone who would try and enforce any restrictions!
I notice how the single does is now weak. But when the extended the time between doses to 12 weeks on the most vulnerable groups it was strong. Strange that….
 

duncanp

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Interestingly, when Mt Gove was being interviewed this morning about the delay, he said that on the 19th, that they hoped to at least 'ease the restrictions'
was he letting something slip there by mistake ?

Michael Gove is quoted on Sky News as saying:-

19 July is the "terminus date" for England's remaining coronavirus restrictions and it would take an "unprecedented and remarkable" change in circumstances to derail that.

I wouldn't read too much too much into any statement such as "..at least ease the restrictions...".

To be quite honest, if the government were to say today "..we are definitely going to abolish all restrictions on 19th July..", I wouldn't believe them.

Until all restrictions are actually abolished, there will always be doubts about what is going to happen.

But Michael Gove's statement above means that it would take the emergence of a really infectious new variant, or a really significant uptick in cases, hospitalisations and deaths, to stop the easings on July 19th from going ahead.

The government won't be able to claim that it doesn't have enough data, and by the middle of July we will be able to compare the scary SAGE and Imperious College modelling with reality.

Added to which, there will be so much political and economic pressure to reopen, that the government is gonig to have to come up with a really good reason for delaying things any further.
 
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