Sajid Javid

And, of course, as comparatively few countries have anywhere near a fully vaccinated population, if we open up our borders to one and all, and allow travel to anywhere in the world, how soon before some new and devastating variant gets imported?

love0c

In answer to your question. No, I see absolutely no resemblance at all.

me either.

Are we all going to sit in our houses till we die of something else?

Of course not. Are we all doing that even now?

But removing all restrictions when cases and hospitalisations are rising fast and there is a very real danger of vaccine resistant variants seems to be completely foolhardy.

Alegrias1

OK everyone, what's the plan?

The vaccines aren't 100%, there will always be variants, some of them will be more resistant to the current vaccine, some people won't take the vaccine anyway.

Are we all going to sit in our houses till we die of something else?

Quite Alegrias. I suspect there are a good number on Gransnet who want to do just that. Well that’s okay, they can do that, but shouldn’t expect the rest of us to join in. The vaccination has broken the link between hospital admissions/deaths, we know that. By winter the whole adult population will have been double vaccinated, and Astra Zeneca are working on a booster shot to be administered, if needed, in the Autumn. There will always be a few people who will require hospitalisation from Covid, but the hospitals will not be overrun with Covid patients. Maybe other patients, but not not Covid patients. But there will be some Covid patients as there are some people who are not vaccinated, plus a very few who contract Covid despite vaccination, but most of them will not require hospitalisation. The AZ vaccine and Pfizer vaccine have been found to give 96% protection against being hospitalised with Covid, even if Covid is contracted.

Too late for this winter spabbygirl, the system will implode well before they can try to impose privatisation, even if they think the public and NHS employees would wear it - industrial action, even strikes could be on the cards with the services as fragile as they are at the moment if they push too hard. I suspect Javid can see that more clearly than Boris, so he may not last too long.
Thankfully for the rest of the UK, the Tories are also only in charge of health in England.

No resemblance. There’s more to criticise/discuss than his appearance, surely?

Javid's remit will be to carry on privatising the NHS as no Tory wants to pay for someone else's healthcare as they see it. We all pay in the same according to our means, and get supplied with what we need. it operates on socialist principles, but healthy Tories like Gove etc. want us all to pay for our own care so they don't have to, expect charges to be phased in and existing services being supplied by private companies like Serco and Virgin, for profit.

We actually will have overrun hospitals this winter. 10,000 beds have been closed since the Tories came into power, and there are never enough beds for medical admissions in the winter regardless of Covid patients. Add Covid patients, more flu because it was suppressed last winter, people with illnesses which have deteriorated due to lockdowns and medical help not being sought/available, and pressure to treat waiting list cases to reduce the lists, which means that less beds will be available for emergencies. A perfect storm is brewing, and it is not the fault of the NHS.

MerylStreep

Some commentators are mentioning that Sajids ethnicity will be a great help in convincing some parts of the community who have been resistant to the vaccine to come forward.

I doubt it. Look at Pakistan, isn’t working there, always they are getting the vaccines.

Some commentators are mentioning that Sajids ethnicity will be a great help in convincing some parts of the community who have been resistant to the vaccine to come forward.

MaizieD

Too much reliance being placed on the vaccination, I think. Even double jabbed people can be infected and pass the virus on. And the more that the virus is at large and passing around the population the more danger there is a a vaccine resistant variant developing. Then what do we do?

Sit down MaizieD I’m agreeing with you!
We have nothing up our sleeves-as far as we know- if the vaccine fails to protect against new variants . However, I would like to think work is going on in labs all over the world trialling or adapting the vaccines to cope . They can’t wait until a new variant is spreading so I’m just hoping that they are prepared ???

OK everyone, what's the plan?

The vaccines aren't 100%, there will always be variants, some of them will be more resistant to the current vaccine, some people won't take the vaccine anyway.

Are we all going to sit in our houses till we die of something else?

maddyone - there's still plenty of unvaccinated people, new variants are inevitable. Plus the current vaccine is not 100%, Covid has not gone anywhere. it still needs managing.

Too much reliance being placed on the vaccination, I think. Even double jabbed people can be infected and pass the virus on. And the more that the virus is at large and passing around the population the more danger there is a a vaccine resistant variant developing. Then what do we do?

I don’t think we’ll have overrun hospitals in the winter. Yes, there will be Covid cases, and also no doubt flu cases in hospital. But 80% of the adult population have got Covid antibodies and by winter the whole adult population will have been double jabbed, so why aggie would the hospitals be overrun? Your post sounds as if you like having restrictions in place.

Be interesting to hear what he has to say this afternoon reporting to the House on the current data.

Now we can look forward to another winter of over run Hospitals .. sigh …

I presume he’s confident restrictions will end as he’s the man who will decide ?

In answer to your question. No, I see absolutely no resemblance at all.

I am pleased he was appointed. Boris made a big mistake in letting him go in the first place.

Well he has some integrity at least, he resigned the cabinet because he predicted Cummings was going to be a disaster.

He was spot on there.