What is government policy?

At the beginning of this horrendous time the Gov was in favour of herd immunity and, although they've spent £billions/given £billions) to their friends, families and donors, they still believe that herd immunity is the way to go. Hence they didn't do the obvious things like closing the borders or giving more money to the NHS to do the things it's most expert in i.e. dealing with health and health emergencies.

Policy? Government? Don't think so.......

Herd immunity is the way to go. Herd immunity doesn't mean letting rip and devil take the hindmost. Herd immunity means that enough of the population have significant immunity to the virus that the virus has many fewer routes to be passed on and so we can control it. Vaccines get us there.

The objective of the Scottish government is to manage the harms caused by COVID whilst also managing the harms caused by the close down of society, long waiting lists for the NHS and so on. (Speaking about Scotland because I'm paying attention to what's happening here. Haven't heard what the objective in for the rest of the UK but I expect its the same.)

A lot of infections are due to the football? According to the news at teatime, 2,000 out of 30,000 cases in the last 2 weeks.

I feel we've got to hold our nerve; the vaccine is there to get us out of this. Contact tracing and quarantine are needed as well. But we're going to have to grit our teeth and get on with it. We can't hold off forever, we've got to move on.

The football crowds are part of government trials, aren't they, to see how they affect the figures and whether we can open up properly? Or at least that's what I understood. Cases will inevitably rise, but we just have to hope that the link between infections and hospitalisations/deaths has been broken, or severely weakened, by the vaccine programme.

As Alegrias says, we can't hold off forever. The virus isn't going away , we just have to learn how we can best live with it.

Daisymae the news is reporting that the sending home of children will cease, replaced by testing, when is a good question. I think Alegrias1 is referring to cases in Scotland, due to fans travelling to London, ticketless for the England game?

It is out of control now, so we have to hope that the number of daily cases doesn’t continue to escalate so it reaches a level where despite the low hospitalisation risk the volume of cases overwhelms the NHS again. The school summer holidays will help hopefully. The main issue at the moment seems to be the number of long covid cases that will be the legacy in future years.

Some of my teenage grandchildren who now live in he EU have been jabbed. and suffered no bad reactions.

I would like to see all secondary school children in the country offered the vaccine.

The alternative is to let the virus run amok and infect most of them, leaving thousands with the horrible effects of long coved.

The first thing about long Covid will be to get GPs to recognise the cases and to record them. There would appear to be a huge discrepancy between the results of Imperial College's React-2 study and the number of cases which GPs are recording.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/30/gps-in-england-failing-to-recognise-thousands-of-long-covid-cases

There are likely to be a number of reasons for this, but accurate data is needed. There is no doubt at all that some people are continuing to suffer for months, perhaps years (we don't know yet) and appropriate strategies are needed.

varian

Some of my teenage grandchildren who now live in he EU have been jabbed. and suffered no bad reactions.

I would like to see all secondary school children in the country offered the vaccine.

The alternative is to let the virus run amok and infect most of them, leaving thousands with the horrible effects of long coved.

Exactly! Over 5 million American schoolchildren have been vaccinated too. There is enough data to evaluate its efficacy and safety. There are rumours that the UK has a shortage of Pfizer vaccine, but isn't being transparent about it. Hence, the attempts to downplay the importance of protecting schoolchildren.

Maggiemaybe

The football crowds are part of government trials, aren't they, to see how they affect the figures and whether we can open up properly? Or at least that's what I understood. Cases will inevitably rise, but we just have to hope that the link between infections and hospitalisations/deaths has been broken, or severely weakened, by the vaccine programme.

As Alegrias says, we can't hold off forever. The virus isn't going away , we just have to learn how we can best live with it.

... and die with it.

What exactly do all the people who use the phrase "live with it" mean?

I feel we do have to grit our teeth, wait until 85% of the population is immune (preferably by vaccination) and then we truly can drop restrictions.

Meanwhile, I hope the country doesn't "get back to normal" and has learnt something from the mistakes and gaping holes the pandemic has revealed. Regrettably, that would need somebody with intelligence, radical thinking and a genuine desire to benefit the whole country.

I think that there's a real risk to NHS in the autumn. Hospitalisation from Covid, flu and people who are suffering because of the delayed treatment. My own feeling is that the infection rates should be suppressed now to give the country a chance later in the year. If it's left to do it's own thing the risk of variants that are vaccine resistant must grow. I also feel that everyone, government included, are bored with the whole thing.