Your idea of stable??

but I think our daily death rates are much higher than in other European countries

They're not.

www.gransnet.com/forums/health/1302155-With-UK-Covid-deaths-the-highest-in-Europe-is-this-living-with-Covid#prettyPhoto

Alegrias www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-58890309 Interview with a hospital consultant in Wales saying the majority of those in hospital and those dying are not vaccinated

Actually what she said was that the vast majority of people in ITU were unvaccinated.

Not incompatible with the other stats.

I’m becoming increasingly afraid. I’ve already had Covid as probably many of you know. I’m afraid of being so ill again. I wear a mask and sanitise when shopping. Hopefully I’ll get my booster in November. In the summer I was relatively relaxed about it all, but as winter approaches, and numbers climb, 45 thousand positive cases yesterday, I feel worried. My dear friend from school (friendship of 50 years) has now got Covid although she’s double vaccinated, and when speaking on the phone to her I can say she sounds dreadful. Numbers appear to be much higher in the rest of Europe. I read an article in The Guardian yesterday saying government appear to have given up trying to control Covid. That’s how it feels to me.

My son and daughter in law live in London and still wfh a couple of days and travel to the office in the Tube the others. Even though the Mayor made mask wearing compulsory on public transport they say only about a third of passengers and a lot of the Tube staff don’t wear them. I live in a rural area but few bother with masks now in our local market town. I’m amazed at the extent of the relaxations in England - no ‘covid passes’ for nightclubs, further travel relaxations including testing requirements, especially coming up to winter with the double threat of covid and flu.

Yes, some will get COVID and a few will die

A curious and rather chilling echo of our PM's words early on in the pandemic, MOnica.

We will be paying for the economic disruption caused by the pandemic for many decades,

Would you like to tell us who we 'owe' this money to? Seeing that most of it was created through the QE mechanism. And that most of our 'debt' is actually people's savings and investments in the very safe vehicle of treasury bonds and NSI. What would paying that back achieve? Apart from lots of people searching for alternative 'safe' investments...

maddyone

I’m becoming increasingly afraid. I’ve already had Covid as probably many of you know. I’m afraid of being so ill again. I wear a mask and sanitise when shopping. Hopefully I’ll get my booster in November. In the summer I was relatively relaxed about it all, but as winter approaches, and numbers climb, 45 thousand positive cases yesterday, I feel worried. My dear friend from school (friendship of 50 years) has now got Covid although she’s double vaccinated, and when speaking on the phone to her I can say she sounds dreadful. Numbers appear to be much higher in the rest of Europe. I read an article in The Guardian yesterday saying government appear to have given up trying to control Covid. That’s how it feels to me.

I agree, maddyone. That's how it feels to me, too, and I believe it is the truth.

They've no interest in the rising numbers of children and young people getting covid and being at risk of Long Covid, which can have long lasting and even life changing effects. Financing schools and colleges to enable them to fit good ventilation and effective air filtration, revising the ridiculous 'guidance' on isolation and attendance when children or parents test positive for covid, and mandating mask use in schools and colleges would be a great help. But no, some may die (or be permanently impaired) and that's fine. Just the luck of the draw, eh...

nanna8

The alternative is to live like we do in Victoria and after nearly 300 days of isolation it has become a living hell. Hasn’t done much, either because it is still spreading.

I understand that dying from covid isn't much fun, either, nanna8.

I appreciate your frustration, but at least you have a government that seems to care about its citizens.

I do think there is a level of complacency. Yesterday we had an e mail from the Chairman of our golf club telling us that the club had been contacted via Test and Trace to say 2 members had tested positive and were in the club on a certain date. (not us) We were warned that members had not been abiding by the conditions placed on and by EGU and the club itself. Hand sanitising was rarely seen and members not logging in to the Q code. I have to say from my point of view many of the lady members gather in the locker room for a chat which we didn't used to do but we have got slack. we will undoubtedly have this much valued facility closed if we are not more careful. Numbers are rising sharply in that area.

I went to Sainsbury yesterday afternoon most customers breezed in past the sanitiser stand not wearing a mask.
My daughter went to Wilko where a notice at the door said STRICT MASK WEARING POLICY- she was the only person wearing a mask. I really think we must tighten up - live life yes of course but with caution.

The ITU consultant was on the Welsh news as well, I thought that the scariest thing about what she said was that some patients enter ITU and refuse conventional treatment, ask for ivermectin or other ‘quack’ drugs, still denying that Covid even exists. The staff must find that so difficult, particularly when younger people die having refused treatment that the staff know is effective.
I think more measures will have to be introduced in the next few weeks because the numbers are going to go up further before all over 50s have had their booster jabs, so there will be more hospitalisations.

I fail to understand how literally hundreds of people a week are dying and yet not the smallest effort is being made to control or reduce infection rates. There seems to be 2 major camps - it's all over, or people are imposing their own restrictions. It seems as though the government has washed their hands of the issue.

Interesting video posted by Richard Murphy in his blog today. Lancet editor, Richard Horton speaking earlier this year

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/10/16/we-must-tell-the-truth-that-people-are-going-to-die-from-covid-again-wholly-unnecessarily/

Daisymae

I fail to understand how literally hundreds of people a week are dying and yet not the smallest effort is being made to control or reduce infection rates. There seems to be 2 major camps - it's all over, or people are imposing their own restrictions. It seems as though the government has washed their hands of the issue.

That is exactly how I feel. I feel as though the government have washed their hands of Covid. Because there are no longer any restrictions I feel less safe when I go out. For example, I went to the Beauty Therapist last week. She wasn’t wearing a mask. Fewer and fewer people bother with masks in the shops now. And the idea of the vaccination passport was ditched. I used to love live entertainment but there is no way I would go to a theatre or concert hall now where I would have no idea whether other people who were sitting next to me were vaccinated or even had bothered to do a test before they went to the theatre. A least when you get on a plane you have to show vaccination status or a negative test.
Last week there were over 800 deaths from Covid. Why is this acceptable?

I understand that this is a libertarian government, but what I don’t understand is that we’re apparently being given the liberty to catch Covid freely and to possibly die from Covid. That’s a bit of liberty I could do without. I do believe that we have to live with Covid, I know there’s unlikely to ever be zero Covid but I don’t understand the tolerance of 800 deaths in a week, or 45000 positive cases in a single day.

On average 1,400 people die each day in the U.K. so by my reckoning approximately 7% of deaths are attributable to COVID-19.

Perhaps if these deaths and causes were published each day it just might make some people take more care of themselves.

Perhaps if these deaths and causes were published each day it just might make some people take more care of themselves.

What on earth are you getting at here, GG13. Are you saying that all death is avoidable? Or that people are dying from covid because they haven't taken enough care of themselves?

We have a global pandemic of a very nasty disease. Other nasty diseases have been eliminated or severely curtailed by vaccination which confers immunity and builds herd immunity. We don't have it in this case. All we have is a vaccine which at best limits the severity of covid; it doesn't offer complete immunity to it. In which case, shouldn't our government be doing something more to actively mitigate its effects and the danger of catching it. By, say, mandatory mask wearing, protecting our young people by making their environment as safe as possible through improving ventilation and air quality in the institutions which they are obliged to attend?

Tolerating death and disablement because the they can't be bothered any longer to try to protect its citizens is not the action of a responsible government.

maddyone

I understand that this is a libertarian government, but what I don’t understand is that we’re apparently being given the liberty to catch Covid freely and to possibly die from Covid. That’s a bit of liberty I could do without. I do believe that we have to live with Covid, I know there’s unlikely to ever be zero Covid but I don’t understand the tolerance of 800 deaths in a week, or 45000 positive cases in a single day.

I don't understand it either.

MaizieD I am saying that looking at the whole picture and break down of all deaths each day in U.K. shines a different light on the situation.

Some non-Covid deaths are avoidable, healthy lifestyle can ward off many, some are sadly not avoidable. The vaccine has reduced the risk of hospitalisation and/or death from/with Covid immensely.

The last figures I saw were indicative of the majority of deaths attributed to Covid were in the unvaccinated or those with underlying co-morbidities. There will always be cases that do not fall into these categories, but that goes for other illnesses also.

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD I am saying that looking at the whole picture and break down of all deaths each day in U.K. shines a different light on the situation.

Some non-Covid deaths are avoidable, healthy lifestyle can ward off many, some are sadly not avoidable. The vaccine has reduced the risk of hospitalisation and/or death from/with Covid immensely.

The last figures I saw were indicative of the majority of deaths attributed to Covid were in the unvaccinated or those with underlying co-morbidities. There will always be cases that do not fall into these categories, but that goes for other illnesses also.

No it doesn't shine a different light. It just sounds like excusing a inert government.

It is irrelevant how many other deaths there are. Many of the covid deaths could be avoidable if the government cared to do something about it.

It doesn’t though GrannyGravy13, because Covid is immediately avoidable, whereas the majority of the other causes of death are the cumulative effect of way of life or genetic factors. You can’t directly equate an infectious disease with ill health.

I don't know how many other deaths have other causes. What I do know is that the number of deaths we have are not inevitable. Covid doesn't drop out of the sky and strike people at random like some kind of alien space invader. People are being infected (and some are dying or being seriously ill) because they have spent time in an environment with infected particles. There isn't a single, simple solution to stopping that happening, but we do know enough to stop the majority of infections. We still have a national crisis, which needs a national response. It's just not good enough to tell people to do what they think best because everybody will have different ideas. I just don't understand why we're not looking at other countries where infection rates, hospitalisations and deaths are lower (however one likes to manipulate statistics) and learn from best practice. Enforcing mask wearing wouldn't be that difficult, in addition to enabling good ventilation, especially in schools.

But we can’t possibly look at how inferior countries are dealing with the crisis….

Oh FGS.

I've been staying off this thread because I know anything I say will be leapt on by the massed ranks of GN, but here we go anyway.

The UK government could make things better in England by imposing tougher restrictions, obviously.

Its also obvious that GG13 is making the point that we have a new disease that we have to get used to, deaths are not as high as deaths from other causes and we need to keep some perspective.

We can't keep saying "France is better" (or whatever) because we don't know if the method of measuring deaths in all these different countries is comparable with our method.

None of us, none of us, knows how to get to the Nirvana of low cases and deaths. Face masks probably help, but so would staying locked in our houses for nine months. Ask nanny8 how that's going.

Rant over. On you go.

Rant away Alegrias! Whatever rocks your boat! It should be bl**ding obvious that the European countries with similar climate/lifestyles/population density to the UK still make mask wearing compulsory and have lower case rates. They have also invested more in making their schools safer. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's worth trying. The UK does not have to live with 800 deaths a week.

That’s exactly the point growstuff. If they can do it in Germany, with no discernible disadvantage to their economy compared with ours (shock, horror!) we should be able to do it too. It’s not about locking down, it’s about not compromising on the things that we know are proven to make a difference in case numbers - and about the competent introduction of systems that help manage the situation.

I would add consistent, coherent and trustworthy messaging to that list.