The horror, the horror (187/365)

[white_hart]

I'd thought that nothing this government does could shock me any more, but I'm still flabbergasted that Boris Johnson could stand up and in one breath say that daily case numbers might be at 50,000 by 19 July and in the next that they're still going to lift all restrictions.

Case numbers round here have been soaring in the last couple of weeks, to the point that the council are now running surge testing and pop-up vaccination centres for 18-29 year olds (and a van advertising this trundled past my office window at least twice today). Hospitalisations do seem to be lower than they were last time case numbers were this high, but lots of people have friends and neighbours who have tested positive despite being vaccinated. It's no surprise that literally every conversation and meeting I had today included some variant of "what the fuck does Boris Johnson think he's doing?".

And now we wait to find out what the university's response will be.

Comments

[cmcmck]

If they're wrong, Bojo is finished, his party will split and the 'experts' are in big trouble!

[white_hart]

Let's hope so, though I'm not convinced anything will finish him.

[sir_guinglain]

They are quite mad, by design as well as by accident. The neglect of children - who are at high risk, now, of long Covid - is staggering; and that's just one point.

[white_hart]

Indeed.

[perennialanna]

I am sitting at home waiting for a PCR result right now. I am 99% sure I have the same kind of chest infection I have been getting for 30ish years now, but the GP quite rightly sees my double jabbing and weeks of clear lateral flow tests as irrelevant. I have a cough that needs treatment, I get a PCR. The cough is leaving me light-headed, so enforced seclusion is not entirely unwelcome.

[cmcmck]

They must have purchased gazillions of these tests and lord alone knows at what cost and seem to see them as the answer to all ills!

[perennialanna]

The one message that does not seem to have got across is that they are not for anyone with any symptoms. I am utterly fed up of sending home feverish coughing children (who are not really fit for school in any circumstances) who 'passed' a lateral flow test in the car on the way to school. Most PCR results seem to be coming through in 24 hours or slightly less now, so getting a proper test is not massively disruptive.

[cmcmck]

I'm a retired teacher myself and I know what you mean. Even without covid, parents would send clearly unwell children to school to spread colds and other nasties.

[perennialanna]

I leave you to guess whether the parent who reluctantly removed their child from the foyer, threatening to complain that we were sending home a perfectly healthy child for no reason, apologised to us later that day when the child was admitted to hospital...

[antisoppist]

Using them as "negative means my child is fit for school" when they're standing there snotty with a temperature or bleeding to death or something seems particularly daft. The message I got was that they were supposed to be for regular testing of the symptom-free anyway.

Enjoy your isolation.

[white_hart]

We're seeing the same thing - our testing service report that they have seen numerous cases of people taking multiple tests on consecutive days and eventually getting a positive, rather than booking a PCR as soon as they have symptoms.

[cosmolinguist]

It absolutely enrages me to see how much of the messaging around England abadoning all covid restrictions in the next fortnight has been "we need to reopen for the sake of mental health! People's mental health is suffering!" And yeah my mental health has reached crisis point this last year, as it happens!

But the mental health crisis I'm facing now, as the end of restrictions may well mean I can't do things, or see family, for potentially even longer? That's an even bigger crisis.

[white_hart]

Exactly!

[callmemadam]

I don't know anyone who disagrees with what you say.

[white_hart]

I know a few people who seem to be rather more optimistic about the effect of the vaccination programme to date on the link between cases and hospitalisation/death, but I think there are too many people still not vaccinated.

[ankaret]

I spent much of yesterday's walk trying to work out whether the average age of double vaccinated people (I got mine at the weekend and I'm 49) correlated with the age at which people are statistically more likely to vote Conservative, and then gave it up because I honestly don't believe that 'whether their supporters live or die' comes into this lot's calculations for a moment.

[white_hart]

I'm not sure they care about whether anyone lives or dies. Except presumably themselves.

[lexin]

I know, I'm stunned. He really doesn't give a damn, does he?

[white_hart]

He really doesn't.

[clanwilliam]

In contrast, over here in a country that has a fair share of fuckwits and vaccine refusers and still technically does not have a government, they're already talking about rolling back some of the opening up.

My money is on it starting from July 25, as that will be 14 days after my second jab.

[white_hart]

It just seems so illogical with case numbers rising.

[sollers]

Here on this side of Offa’s Dyke things are being treated cautiously and Drakeford is not committing himself to anything. I am so glad we moved here.

[hilarita]

I too am waiting to find out what my university thinks should happen. We're also seeing rising cases, though primarily in the 15-19 age group.

I just don't get it. Let's assume that the government have no ethical concerns about people getting covid. I don't understand why they don't have major economic concerns about it: if even 2% more of the young and working age population end up with long covid, then surely that leads to problems for companies (who now can't recruit easily from Europe), and for the government, because of the much larger benefits bill they'll have. I just can't make it add up, even if you assume that the government is just fine with people suffering.

[owl]

Maybe they aren't planning to pay the benefits bill.

[muninnhuginn]

I suspect this is the case.

[white_hart]

Yup.

[crinolinerobot]

I'm replying to this on the 18th and the numbers were around 55K yesterday so...

I've got the weird disconnect of being in a relatively low covid area, and most of my friends are online and sensible, so aside from a few cases early in 2020, no-one I know has actually had it. It feels weirdly like everything is fine and everything is disastrous all at once. It must be much more worrying for you living in a place that has big spikes.