I don't disagree. I just struggle to envisage a scenario where people are at work, schools and pubs/restaurants are open, and you're mass testing in hotspots where you constantly keep it much lower than that.
The rise in daily new cases in the UK is almost at the same rate as just before the peak in April. It has been rising steadily since it bottomed out in mid-July. We are a long, long way from putting this behind us. It may be that we have to find a completely new way of working and having a social life.
That's not really a fair comparison though given that no cases in the community were being identified at that time. Testing has increased hugely since June let alone April. Agree completely on your last two sentences though I'd question how long for.
Testing has certainly increased hugely, but I have little confidence that the people who need to be tested are always able to get it done, and done quickly. My wife has to be tested weekly as she works in a care home. She was tested last Thursday and got the results (negative) today. What use is that? As to your last point, we can only ever dream of getting back to anything like the old normal when we have a reliable vaccine.
Again I don't disagree with a lot of that. Just pointing out that comparing April's numbers with now is pointless and doesn't tell us much if anything. And if a vaccine doesn't arrive?
With great difficulty, really. Looking at results elsewhere, localized shutdowns seem to be the best bet, but for that you really need it to be at background levels going in so that you're only getting a handful of hotspots that you can tamp down aggressively, and you need societal buy-in. And it's much easier to have societal buy-in if people believe that there's a functional plan in place to stamp it out.
Then we won’t ever get back to normal. And I wasn’t comparing April’s numbers with now, but pointing out that the rise since July is worryingly steep, and it’s not just because more people are being tested, but because more and more people are mixing at work and socially.
8 people in the UK died with Coronavirus yesterday. Not sure how many men died of prostate cancer, or women of breast cancer, but I’m guessing a lot more than that. My mate’s wife works at the UCH in Bloomsbury. The ICU there, which was the subject of newspaper articles and host to film crews in April, is currently empty.
A million students moving around the country shortly will have a significant effect on new outbreaks. A number of courses can be taught online, but all the students taking subjects that involve lab experiments will be living on or near campus. At least 5 thousand of them in Bath where I work. All the distancing and precautions being taken at the uni will largely become pointless because students will be students and the virus will spread from Uni towns. I'm trying to work from home as much as possible, but my role involves having to be onsite for certain tasks and involves what we call "public access PCs" which are exactly that - about 1000 computers, keyboards and mice that could all be used many times by many different people during a day, and the lecture room PCs that will be used to live stream and record lectures and events. Hygiene of the equipment is mostly going to be down to personal responsibility and we know how well that works! 3 days a week at least I'll be heading off into a prime breeding site what with the nature of the workplace and the type of equipment that I have to manage. It's not a nice prospect to be honest
Why? You can’t wish the virus away! If we don’t get a vaccine, and I think we most likely will, then we will have to find ways of living which minimise spreading the infection.
Who's on about wishing it away? I'm just saying that if a vaccine never arrives (which is very possible) then at some point you just have to accept that it's something that we have to live with like we do for every viral infection that's in the world. So children can never play it/tag again, or socialise properly with friends and peers. Single people can never have sex with others again. My boy can never hug his grandmother or aunty again. All because of a disease that's only deadly for an extremely small percentage of the population. Now that may sound cold but ultimately it's a fact. The damage was done in January and February and it's here now. Nothing is ever going to change that unless there is a working vaccine. Which could be years if not decades if not never. So yes, I do think it's crazy to suggest that we never go back to normal.
I can understand why you’re nervous. But if you and the people around you follow the protocols, you probably don’t need to be. I’ve been working in public transport, at a busy Londonn station, since March. Trains and buses have never been so clean, and none of my colleagues has tested positive for Covid. Having said that, people have been getting a bit slack about keeping their distance and washing their hands; hopefully this’ll be a wake up call.
You can still have sex, so long as it’s with no more than 6 people at a time. Think I’ve got that right.
Was it just me, but did Boris sound more precise and less bumbling? Maybe I am getting used to him and learning how to decipher his crap, but I actually understood what he was saying more or less immediately. Probably just me going by my muddled posts earlier....
I'm not going to track down a link, because I'm at work, but the Canadian government recommended gloryholes. Seriously!
