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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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Wuffle

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It's week 63 of 3 weeks to flatten the curve

Should never imposed lockdowns in the first place sadly I think Johnson will listen to the sirens of doom and delay again which could be interesting shall we say
 
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brad465

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Local guidance extended from Bolton and Blackburn into Manchester and other parts of Lancashire. With the rate increases being seen in the north west and how localised it is I am concerned regional restrictions will make a comeback.

I am hopefully government will hold their nerve in the face of hospitals not becoming overrun.
Bolton has seen a marked decline in cases recently (last 7 days down 199 and 17.7%). Given this was the first area things kicked off, hopefully other surrounding areas will see a similar peak in infections soon.
 

Bertie the bus

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This interview on talkradio is with somebody who thinks restrictions shouldn't be eased and infact should last forever.

It is terrifying that somebody like this - educated at Cambridge, a trained Doctor, a former MP - can hold such selfish views. I fear there are many others like him.
I have no idea what his views are and therefore can’t feel outraged by them. All that link shows is some woman talking over and screeching at an old man.
 

brad465

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According to tomorrow's Telegraph front page, Andrew Lloyd Webber is prepared to reopen his Theatres without social distancing on June 21st "come hell or high water", adding he's prepared to be arrested for it and would initiate "the mother of all legal cases" against the Government if reopening was delayed:

1623193507522.png
 

kristiang85

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According to tomorrow's Telegraph front page, Andrew Lloyd Webber is prepared to reopen his Theatres without social distancing on June 21st "come hell or high water", adding he's prepared to be arrested for it and would initiate "the mother of all legal cases" against the Government if reopening was delayed:

View attachment 97902

Wasn't he a prominent locktivist before?

I might be wrong, but it's proof the tide is turning hopefully.
 

brad465

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Wasn't he a prominent locktivist before?

I might be wrong, but it's proof the tide is turning hopefully.
If he does manage to follow through with what he's saying here (although hopefully he won't have to if no delay to easing is made), it'll certainly be a form of disobedience to restrictions many on here have been saying is what's needed to force the Government's hand.
 

Ianno87

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If he does manage to follow through with what he's saying here (although hopefully he won't have to if no delay to easing is made), it'll certainly be a form of disobedience to restrictions many on here have been saying is what's needed to force the Government's hand.

Although presumably not himself personally opening each theatre - it will be the people he employs who will be "risking arrest"...
 

yorksrob

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I have no idea what his views are and therefore can’t feel outraged by them. All that link shows is some woman talking over and screeching at an old man.

He was fairly explicit that he felt that some sort of indefinate lockdown was required.

Ultimately he struggled to justify that position and counter any of the very sensible (albeit somewhat heated) points put forward by the interviewer because his position is clearly unjustifiable.
 

Jamesrob637

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Lockdown in the first place was sensible as no one knew much about the virus. It's the second and third lockdown that should potentially have never happened.

This. The first lockdown could've ended a little sooner, or reopening a little less phased, but a) that's nearly a year ago now and b) I'm splitting hairs.

Not that many businesses would've suffered with only one lockdown, and furlough would've ended months ago meaning we'd only have to pay it back over a few years if even that, rather than a generation. Much of the initial furlough money was in the Government's bank/reserves anyway as they prepared for such an eventuality.
 

Darandio

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Just looked at this piece on the BBC live page, it can be seen here.

Reporting of this type concerns me as people will quickly read it and probably not refer to any data themselves. It suggests concern that cases are going up and then directly says that has related to hospital admissions. So this suggests that hospital admissions are rising quickly, but they aren't, are they?

Delta variant is complicating matters - will we see 21 June delayed?​


It was always expected cases would rise at this stage – allowing indoor mixing is the move that allows the virus to spread most easily.

But what is concerning government scientists is how quickly cases are going up – and how that has begun to translate into hospital admissions.

The increase in hospital admissions is only really apparent in the north-west so far – more than a third of admissions in England have been in that region over the past week.

The hope was the progress of the vaccination programme would lead to a slower increase in infections and hospital admissions would be flatter. But the Delta variant appears to have complicated matters - and so the alarm bells are beginning to ring.

But it is still early days. There is hope this rise could tail off given the immunity that has built up in the population and what has been seen in the north-west does not translate to other parts of the country.

As painful as it is, the message from scientists is that a delay in fully opening up allows more time to gather data and understand what is happening and to vaccinate more.

A slowing of the progress on the roadmap rather than the ending of it.
 

Domh245

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So this suggests that hospital admissions are rising quickly, but they aren't, are they?

Nationally on the dashboard they seem to be static. The North West is showing a slight increase, but nothing particularly dire (43 on 5/6 compared to a lows of around 10 in early May)

This FT article has some interesting analysis, but some very dubious data presentation - which is disappointing to see

Greater Manchester and Lancashire will have access to military back-up and surge testing as part of a “strengthened package of support” to combat the spread of the Delta variant of coronavirus, the government announced on Tuesday. The two regions in northern England were also added to a list of areas, including Leicester and Hounslow in west London, where travel and indoor mixing is discouraged. Supervised in-school testing will also begin, health secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons The announcement will add to fears that the spread of the Delta variant, first identified in India, could scupper prime minister Boris Johnson’s hopes of lifting all remaining restrictions on social contact on June 21. At the end of the week, the UK government’s main scientific advisory bodies, Sage and Nervtag, will meet to assess the latest data about the spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19 in England. Their conclusions about what the data say about how the Delta variant affects transmission, vaccine efficacy and rates of severe disease will significantly influence ministers’ decisions. Has transmissibility increased? In mid-May, the Delta variant of Covid-19 overtook the Alpha variant, first identified in Kent, to become the dominant strain of the virus in England. Three-quarters of the nearly 14,000 viral genomes sequenced in England by the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the two weeks to May 29 were Delta. Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London and a member of Nervtag, told the Financial Times the Delta variant’s “considerable competitive advantage” was now “beyond doubt” despite the “exact degree” to which it increases transmissibility being “unclear”. Hancock confirmed on Monday that the strain was at least 40 per cent more transmissible than the previously dominant Alpha variant. “Higher infectivity means it could rip through unvaccinated populations if life returns to normal in a fortnight,” Openshaw said. Oliver Johnson, director of the Institute for Statistical Science at Bristol university, said the “compound interest effect” from “each new generation of the virus” added to the “danger [from] further unlocking”. At its current weekly growth rate of 50 per cent, there could be at least 10,000 cases a day by June 21, he said. How effective are vaccines against the variant? Scientists are reassured by the sustained pace of England’s vaccine rollout and the way fully vaccinated people have fought off symptomatic and severe disease. Of the 126 Delta variant cases in hospitals across England, only three people had received both doses of a vaccine, according to Hancock, while 28 had been given a single dose. Based on the data, FT analysis suggests two doses of a vaccine are about 95 per cent effective at preventing hospital admission with the Delta variant, and one dose upwards of 70 per cent. Ian Jones, a virology professor at Reading university, said the data implied the vaccines would “restrain” the Delta variant even if the government proceeded with step four of its road map out of lockdown. “If [the vaccines] are stopping hospitalisations and very likely deaths, there’s not much more you can ask for,” he said. According to PHE, the effectiveness of both the Oxford/AstraZeneca and BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines in preventing symptomatic disease after a single dose drops to 33 per cent because of the Delta variant. But, after two doses, this figure rises steeply to 60 per cent for Oxford/AstraZeneca and 88 per cent for BioNTech/Pfizer. Recommended Covid-19 vaccines Covid-19 vaccine tracker: the global race to vaccinate Deborah Dunn-Walters, chair of the British Society for Immunology’s Covid-19 task force, who has advised Sage, told the FT: “We thus appear to be in a race between giving two vaccine doses to everyone versus the spread of the Delta variant.” By 7 June, 53.6 per cent of adults in the UK had received both doses of a vaccine. Dunn-Walters called on the government “not to abandon all our infection control measures”, citing the fact that two-thirds of those in hospital with the Delta variant were unvaccinated and that 20 per cent had received just one dose. Does the variant cause more severe disease? As the Delta variant has only been present in the UK since mid-March and been the dominant strain for just a matter of weeks, its effect on the severity of the virus is only beginning to emerge in the data. The latest Public Health England data suggest the Delta variant increases the risk of hospitalisation by 2.6 times and critical care admission by 1.6 times compared with the Alpha variant. However, Jones warned against jumping to “quick conclusions” about the hospitalisation rate. “At one point, our best estimates implied the Kent [Alpha] variant had a higher death rate but that’s since been proven not to be the case,” he said. Whether or not the current estimate holds or declines, greater transmissibility is a bigger concern than greater severity, according to Nick Davies, an epidemiological modeller at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and member of the UK’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M). “All else [being] equal, an increase in transmissibility is a greater cause for concern than an increase in severity, because an increase in transmissibility makes the virus that much harder to control and threatens to undo more of the progress we’ve made in administering vaccines,” said Davies. How are hospitals coping? After falling for months, hospital admissions and patient numbers are now climbing across most of the UK, with the north-west of England showing signs of exponential growth. Between May 22 and 29, weekly admissions climbed by a third from 121 to 163. The following week saw another 31 per cent rise to 214. That rise has been driven by younger adults, among whom admissions are climbing at the same rate as they did last September, while rates for over-65s are declining. “We are in a much, much better situation than we would have been without vaccines protecting the majority of vulnerable people”, said Davies. “But we will still see transmission among people who have not been offered the vaccine yet, and to a lesser extent, those with only one vaccine dose”.

Their graphs show only a modest increase in 18-64 year olds using weekly admissions to sound scary (up to 150/week - 20 a day but no evident levelling off or downward trend), and an almost 3x increase in admissions (from a value coinciding with the low point in cases)

Certainly no cause for panic IMO
 

initiation

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I have no idea what his views are and therefore can’t feel outraged by them. All that link shows is some woman talking over and screeching at an old man.
And I see a selfish old man literally laughing when asked about actions that cause unaccounted misery to others.

You don't think he was at all taking a position that covid restrictions should last much longer? Yes when probed, he struggled to rationally explain it but that doesn't mean his views were not apparent.

How people can defend such a selfish man I have no idea.
 

bramling

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A recent poll within the travel industry (mine) suggests that three-quarters of staff prefer the choice of WFH or going into the office, and fewer than 1 in 10 people wish to work in the office full-time. Just over 1 in 10 prefer WFH full-time.

Based on this, we need a form of normality to resume, including this social distancing/obligatory masks malarkey to end, but not go back completely to how life was prior to mid-March 2020.

Any discussion about keeping WFH needs to be completely and utterly separate from discussion about Covid restrictions.

There are too many people using Covid as a means of trying to keep favourable lifestyle changes for as long as possible.
 

brad465

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Further to the Telegraph report on Andrew Lloyd Webber, the BBC now has its own article on this story:


Andrew Lloyd Webber has said he is determined to open his theatres on 21 June, even if he risks being arrested.
The impresario's West End production of Cinderella is scheduled to begin previews on 25 June, four days after so-called "freedom day".
"We are going to open, come hell or high water," he told the Telegraph.
The government has said it will make a judgement soon on whether to proceed with the lifting of lockdown restrictions on 21 June.
According to reports, that date may be pushed back by the government due to concerns over the impact of Covid-19 variant.
Theatres are currently able to operate with with reduced capacities and socially distanced audiences.
Lord Lloyd-Webber has previously insisted that productions like his large-scale musicals are "impossible" under those restrictions.
 

Bantamzen

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And I see a selfish old man literally laughing when asked about actions that cause unaccounted misery to others.

You don't think he was at all taking a position that covid restrictions should last much longer? Yes when probed, he struggled to rationally explain it but that doesn't mean his views were not apparent.

How people can defend such a selfish man I have no idea.
And let's face it, the interview was really just an slightly over the top version of what someone like Jeremy Paxman would have done. Journalists these days often give politicians and experts far too an easy ride.
 

Scotrail12

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And I see a selfish old man literally laughing when asked about actions that cause unaccounted misery to others.

You don't think he was at all taking a position that covid restrictions should last much longer? Yes when probed, he struggled to rationally explain it but that doesn't mean his views were not apparent.

How people can defend such a selfish man I have no idea.
Exactly - This was not an old man being given a hard time, this was a dangerous individual trying to wreck society with no care about the impact on others and Hartley-Brewer rightly took him to task for his attitude.
 

initiation

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Wasn't he a prominent locktivist before?

I might be wrong, but it's proof the tide is turning hopefully.

He has previously been in the media as a strong supporter of vaccine passports (I presume he wants these as a way to open at full capacity) and previously described those declining the vaccine 'as bad as drink-drivers'. Perhaps not a locktivist but also not 'crying freedom'.
 

kristiang85

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He has previously been in the media as a strong supporter of vaccine passports (I presume he wants these as a way to open at full capacity) and previously described those declining the vaccine 'as bad as drink-drivers'. Perhaps not a locktivist but also not 'crying freedom'.
Ah right, thanks for clarifying. I knew he'd been vocal about something I didn't agree with.

It does make sense that he doesn't want lockdowns though, given theatre is his industry and livelihood.
 

Nicholas Lewis

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Just looked at this piece on the BBC live page, it can be seen here.

Reporting of this type concerns me as people will quickly read it and probably not refer to any data themselves. It suggests concern that cases are going up and then directly says that has related to hospital admissions. So this suggests that hospital admissions are rising quickly, but they aren't, are they?
NHS England data today has hospitalisations down 3 from yesterday but with quite big movements in individual regions. SE for example is down from 74 to 54 in 24hrs but NW is up another 10 from 246 to 256. However, daily admissions are also creeping up but total hospitalised is lagging well behind the daily increase which indicates shorter stays in hospitals. This shows potential effects of vaccine, lower age groups responding quickly to treatment or the Delta variant being less invasive - my speculation.

All in all though it shows the vaccination programme is dealing with Step 3 and the unexpected appearance of the Delta variant very nicely but as you say media will headline the cases and not report on the data that matters so the clammer to defer 21st June will ratchet up another notch.
 

duncanp

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NHS England data today has hospitalisations down 3 from yesterday but with quite big movements in individual regions. SE for example is down from 74 to 54 in 24hrs but NW is up another 10 from 246 to 256. However, daily admissions are also creeping up but total hospitalised is lagging well behind the daily increase which indicates shorter stays in hospitals. This shows potential effects of vaccine, lower age groups responding quickly to treatment or the Delta variant being less invasive - my speculation.

All in all though it shows the vaccination programme is dealing with Step 3 and the unexpected appearance of the Delta variant very nicely but as you say media will headline the cases and not report on the data that matters so the clammer to defer 21st June will ratchet up another notch.

I just hope the government is looking at the figures in the same way that you are.

It is looking at all the data that matters, and just one metric in isolation from the others.
 

Bishopstone

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Johnson said, in several Covid news conferences that I watched since February, that each stage of the re-opening would lead to more infections and hospitalisations. Whatever his many faults, he was quite open and straightforward on this point.

Now that re-opening has seen more infections and (slightly) more hospitalisations - as predicted - why are so many intelligent people running around in panic as though this was entirely unexpected?
 

duncanp

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Boris Johnson is quoted as saying today he is "still looking at the data"

Credit where it is due - at least he isn't (yet) being panicked into cancelling 21st June altogether.

My money is still on some restrictions being eased on June 21st, and the remaining restrictions being done away with on or before the school holdiays start.

It may be that, on Monday, he announces that some restrictions will definitely be eased on June 21st, but that the others will be abolished on a date "..no earlier than July 5th.."


Prime Minister Boris Johnson says it’s too early to say if England's lockdown can end on 21 June as data on whether the vaccine rollout offers enough protection from the Delta variant is still being assessed.

"On Monday... we'll have a look at where we are. I think what everybody can see very clearly is that cases are going up, and in some places hospitalisations are going up," he says, speaking in Cornwall ahead of the G7 conference.

"What we need to assess is the extent to which the vaccine rollout - which has been phenomenal - has built up protection in the population in order for us to go ahead to the next stage. And so that's what we'll be looking at."
 

35B

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Johnson said, in several Covid news conferences that I watched since February, that each stage of the re-opening would lead to more infections and hospitalisations. Whatever his many faults, he was quite open and straightforward on this point.

Now that re-opening has seen more infections and (slightly) more hospitalisations - as predicted - why are so many intelligent people running around in panic as though this was entirely unexpected?
Because they see hospitalisation now as being like hospitalisation 6 months ago - long lasting, intensive, and with very serious knock on effects.

The question, and I can't make my mind up whether the data points towards the risk being sustainable, or a deferral being necessary to manage the scale of further increase, is whether growth in both cases and hospitalisations is manageable, or needs to be nipped in the bud because it's likely to be highly disruptive. Even the more optimistic of the sensible commentators have havered on this point, and consistently argued it to be finely balanced.
 

Nicholas Lewis

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Johnson said, in several Covid news conferences that I watched since February, that each stage of the re-opening would lead to more infections and hospitalisations. Whatever his many faults, he was quite open and straightforward on this point.

Now that re-opening has seen more infections and (slightly) more hospitalisations - as predicted - why are so many intelligent people running around in panic as though this was entirely unexpected?
Hancock yesterday was questioned specifically over vaccine efficacy against hospitalisation and was very positive that a single dose was c70% effect and two doses c90% so he knows its doing what it supposed to. However, he said against Delta variant the scientists can't give definitive info yet and could be a couple of weeks before data is available so that's probably a negative for 21st June now baked in as far as he's concerned.
 

Darandio

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Because they see hospitalisation now as being like hospitalisation 6 months ago - long lasting, intensive, and with very serious knock on effects.

Who sees it that way?

The NHS have been making it quite clear that the people who are going in aren't as seriously ill as they were in early waves. They are younger, or don't require intensive care as much and they're coming out sooner.
 
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