Second waves - dealing with the virus part 2 ??

Many people do seem to be behaving as though the virus has gone away.

Packed beaches says it all. I even heard someone say that it was impossible to catch it out of doors! Although it is less likely I wouldn't want to sit inches away from strangers anywhere.

The advice is still to keep apart even when outside.

Exactly MayBee. He seems to see himself as the person releasing the plebs from their hardship. What he's really doing is withdrawing protection too early.

PS. Good news that Scotland seems to have almost eradicated the infection. It looks as though Scotland got something right. Wales has had very few new cases too.

growstuff: if my memory is correct Johnson even said, when he announced the easing of lockdowns ‘enjoy yourselves I groaned when he said it just as I did when he eased lockdown previously and said people could have barbecues, at which point the scientific advisors had to warn people how easy it was to transmit the virus at barbecues.

livelihoods over lives - yes, that just about sums it up (and often said by the retired with gardens, who don't have to go to work by public transport or those who are fed up with their kids at home).

And, no, the public can't be trusted to use common sense or even understand the issues.

The government and some sections of the media have framed lockdown as depriving people of their freedom rather than protecting them and others in society. Johnson obviously thinks that throwing sweeties at the plebs will make them see him in a positive light.

Therefore, as soon as restrictions are relaxed, it's not surprising that people see it as being given permission to behave as they want, especially as the messaging itself has been so muddled.

The only way to prevent a a second wave of outbreaks is to bring the community transmission rate (R) right down to practically zero. If it's not zero, mitigation measures such as social distancing and mask wearing need to be rigidly enforced. Test and track systems could identify isolated flare ups, but only if they're efficient and people do actually isolate themselves. We do not have an efficient and well-resourced system.
Letting the virus run free within the community will inevitably cause more deaths and long-term complications. That's the price we'll pay for people to get back to work

It seems clear enough to me without the scientific or economic background of those in charge of our society.
Sadly, that seems to be a price our government thinks is worth paying - livelihoods over lives.
If the public could be trusted to show some common sense, yes, things could ease up, but swathes of our population seem to have a self-destruct button and if they are not told what to do in words of one syllable they take it as carte blanche to behave like life is one long Bank Holiday Monday. .

The simple answer is that the virus is continually mutating, but not in any meaningful way. It's not getting "weaker" or "stronger". It's just changing slightly as it moves round the globe.

www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid19-mutations-strains-variants

That article is a few weeks out of date. I found some more recent ones, but they're written in more "scientific" language. They're all saying the same thing.

It seems that my SOH is different to others on this thread.

lemongrove I posted part of the Caitlyn Moran article because I thought it would give everyone a smile. It wasn't supposed to be factual.

Yes, that would be interesting growstuff

Callistemon I don't know about that. I thought it hadn't mutated as much as people suspected it might, but I guess I could find out.

As far as I can see, Pennington is no longer even engaged in active research. People I know personally most certainly are engaged in research and what they're saying at the moment is that there isn't anything that new. They keep chipping away at little bits of the puzzle, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that the virus is "weakening".

The only way to prevent a a second wave of outbreaks is to bring the community transmission rate (R) right down to practically zero. If it's not zero, mitigation measures such as social distancing and mask wearing need to be rigidly enforced. Test and track systems could identify isolated flare ups, but only if they're efficient and people do actually isolate themselves. We do not have an efficient and well-resourced system.

Letting the virus run free within the community will inevitably cause more deaths and long-term complications. That's the price we'll pay for people to get back to work.

It could have been avoided if we'd had proper lockdown, not the half-hearted version we had.

I'd like to see it too, it would be a relief for many.

I thought it had already mutated more than once, like influenza does.

Callistemon Well, if he he is right, I'd like to see some of his evidence. There is still so much that is unknown. If Pennington has evidence he's withholding, that doesn't sound very ethical to me.

Sorry:

SARS dies out more quickly without a host, therefore there have been relatively few cases and subsequent deaths than from COVID19.

MERS does not transmit so easily from human to human but has a much higher death rate than either SARS or COVID19.

PS. We do not have an efficient test, track and isolate system!

Jane10

Interesting article by emeritus professor Hugh Pennington on why there won't be a second wave. Basically it's because Covid 19 isn't flu and only flu has second waves. What we might have, as Germany has had, is another outbreak. This can be tackled, as ever, by test and trace and lockdown of potential cases. He says that, like Sars, the virus will weaken and possibly even die out by Christmas. Interesting to read this. He's a highly regarded international expert. Fingers crossed he's right.

This virus may be in the same group of viruses as SARS and MERS but behaves differently.
The death rate for SARS and in particular MERS is much higher than for COVID19 but neither are as infectious.
I understand that SARS does out more quickly without a host too.

But I hope that Prof Pennington is right.

Why is he more exceptionally well qualified to comment Jane10 than all the other scientists exceptionally well qualified to comment? Most other scientists disagree with him.

I was going to post the same as you lemongrove. Pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants provide a livelihood for the people that own or run them and those they employ.

Those who want to stay away from the aforementioned are free to do so. We ran our own retail business until Mr. S. retired about 2 years ago, and I can't say how relieved we are that we weren't facing what so many other businesses have had to face.

Some people are terrified of seeing the businesses they built from scratch, going down the drain and losing everything,

Without a phone app, I can't see how track and trace can possibly work in the face of the packed beaches in, for example, Bournemouth - how would anyone know who they had been near on the beach??!!!

Jane10

Hugh Pennington is exceptionally well qualified to comment. We do have a track and trace system. I'm still not panicking, or rather, allowing myself to be panicked by journalists.

We have a woefully inefficient track and trace system, all the more so since the easing of lockdown has made it harder for the “tracers” to reach possible contacts and however the highly qualified Professor Pennington is, he is in a minority of one as far as I can see.
It is not only the variants of flu which can evidence a second wave - there have manifestations of a resurgence of Ebola, for instance.
It would be nice to believe all is hunky-dory, but so far - Nord Rhein Westfalen, Beijing, Berlin and here at home Anglesey have all had a surge of new cases.
You can’t deny that sort of empirical evidence.

Sparkle amusing as Moran can be at times, she isn’t an expert on anything at all. Opening bars and cafes is more to save the businesses themselves and peoples jobs.
The hospitality industry has suffered massively, remember.
Phased openings of shops/ bars/ cafes etc is the right thing to do, the country cannot stay closed up any longer.
Scotland and Wales won’t be far behind us.
Other countries in Europe have already opened bars and cafes btw.
There are always idiots who will continue to get drunk....they can actually do that at home anytime, before going out.

Hugh Pennington is exceptionally well qualified to comment. We do have a track and trace system. I'm still not panicking, or rather, allowing myself to be panicked by journalists.

Sorry it's so long but this is Caitlyn Moran's take on it from The Times this morning:

On Tuesday the good news England had been waiting for for so long was finally announced: that our country is free from Covid-19, our months of terror are over and the schools are reopening so that children might resume their education! HURRAH!

Oh, hang on, it wasn’t that. The actual news was: “We still have the highest death toll in Europe and the schools are staying closed until September — but the pubs are going to reopen anyway! HURRAH!”

Holding what was revealed to be the last of the daily pandemic press conferences, Boris Johnson declared that from July 4 — “Super Saturday” — huge swathes of lockdown are due to be lifted. Hotels, caravan parks and restaurants will reopen, and weddings are allowed to resume — although “without singing”.

As with so many of the decisions of the Johnson government, trying to find a logical through-route on the new rules was as difficult as finding a logical through-route to London that includes a stop-off at Barnard Castle. For instance, swimming pools and lidos are to remain closed — despite being, essentially, huge, chlorinated sheep-dip tanks full of disinfectant.

On the other hand, as Johnson seemed desperate to tell us, pubs are opening! THE PUBS! While working out just how safe this will prove to be, let’s remind ourselves what “pubs” are — after all, it’s been a long time since we’ve all been in one. Pubs: places where people go to get pissed, and therefore are unlikely to adhere to the most stringent of hygiene and distancing guidelines.

Look, let’s be real: when people are drunk, they can’t prevent themselves falling down a full flight of stairs, having sex with people they hate, and/or picking fights with men who genuinely look like murderers, so expecting them to remain aware of avoiding a wholly invisible virus one 50th the size of a piece of dust seems, at best, wildly optimistic and, at worst, a fact relayed in a portentous voiceover on a future documentary called “How Everyone Went to the Pub — And Then Died: The British Corona Story”.

“The common sense of the British people is going to get us through this,” the prime minister said, optimistically, having just earmarked July 4 as The Most Pissed Day England Will Ever Have. Can we just dwell, for one more minute, on how epically slaughtered everyone will be on this day?

It will become a landmark in the history of our country. This will be the Battle of AGin. The Sealing of Magners Carta. The Brewsades. And, of course, we must remind ourselves: this relaxation of the rules is for England only. While Northern Ireland is opening pubs from July 3, Wales and Scotland are continuing to observe a much tighter lockdown — which means, essentially, they’re going to be our two non-drinking friends sombrely witnessing our evening of demented bacchanalian wazzery.

On the morning of July 5 England is going to wake up with a hangover of the category “It feels like I ate a rabid dog”, to find a series of texts from Scotland and Wales along the lines of “9.47pm: slow down mate”; “10.07pm: drink some water”; “10.37: SERIOUSLY, DRINK SOME WATER”; “11.19pm: No — don’t have any coke”; “11.26PM: THAT IS NOT A URINAL. IT IS A BUGGY”; “12.01am: PLEASE stop sending me dick pics”; “1am: GO HOME, ENGLAND — YOU’RE DRUNK”.

If July 4 is Super Saturday, July 5 will come to be known, I suspect, as Shame Sunday.

Locking down islands is much easier. - tell that to BJ!!!

We are an island and this is what he should have done on Day One.

Hmm ... it seems quite a few scientists don't agree with Pennington and claim his logic is flawed.

In order to prevent a second wave, most scientists agree that an effective test, track and isolate system is needed. The UK doesn't have one.

I can't find any evidence that the virus is weakening. Transmission rates have come down as a result of social distancing. If almost nobody is infected, of course it can't be transmitted, but most parts of the UK are far from having almost nobody infected.

The government is no longer following SAGE advice. It now has an advisory group called NERVTAG, made up of tame scientists and economists. Like SAGE in the early days, the minutes of meetings aren't being published.