So what's your problem with a mask or a corona pass? They're going to be needed for international travel and entry to bars, restaurants and venues worldwide.
I don't have an issue with face masks for now. I wear one when I go into busy places. I just won't wear them indefinitely. Same with Covid passes. I've been happy to use them to get into places but again, not going to carry on using them forever.
Who wants to visit these crazy places like New Zealand, Australia or Canada anyway, maybe once upon a time I did, but certainly not now. The way some of you speak is like you want it all to stay. Why don't we all do this for flu etc? So those that are pro mask all the time, when you go to the football, do you ever remove your masks to eat, if so explain how that is ok? I'm generally interested as in my head, if this whole thing is scary, then realistically you wouldn't go, but if you had to, it would be full on hazmat suits. Maybe you are so worried, that you aren't going to the matches anymore or theatre, cinema, pubs and restaurants? If so that's very sad but I respect your decision.
It's the opposite. We want this to end. We just don't think that it's possible or beneficial to pretend that it has ended when it hasn't. And again, I'm in one of those 'crazy places', and the net result of our mask mandate/quarantine policy was that we went most of a year where COVID just wasn't a thing here, save for a couple of 2-3 week periods where we hit lockdown. Omicron changed that, but for all the people crying out for normalcy, we had that for a long time.
At the Oude Sluys in Leidschendam all Checked and distanced good ventilation. Passes work, no problems with entry to venues here in the Netherlands or travel within Europe and further afield.
Omicron is too transmittable to make much difference in transmission rate sadly. Thankfully it's a lot less harmful for the vast majority
What do they work for though? It doesnt do anything to stop transmission. It's mearly a tool to get people to get vaccinated. At this stage they are getting diminishing returns from that. It's the one thing I think should be gotten rid of. Masks I understand
So what do you base your "doesnt do anything to stop transmission.” on? Granted the Omicron has greater transmission rates but vaccination helps boosters especially. https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/vaccina...ted-household-members-by-63-for-delta-variant Edit "Looking only at Omicron households, however, booster-vaccinated people were 56% less likely to become infected compared to vaccinated people who had not received a booster. And overall, when booster-vaccinated people were the ones who first brought home the virus, they were less likely than unvaccinated and vaccinated-but-not-boosted people to pass it to others." From https://www.reuters.com/business/he...osters-protect-households-omicron-2021-12-29/
Those who think that Covid should be treated like flu, might like to read through the following from an article in the BMJ, (October 2021) where they have looked at the question:- Are there more deaths from flu than from covid? Data from the Office for National Statistics show that in England and Wales the number of deaths from influenza was 1598 in 2018 and 1223 in 2019. This is way below the annual deaths from covid-19, which at the current rate of around 800 deaths a week in England and Wales equates to more than 40 000 a year. Disagreements have emerged on social media because some commentators have quoted much higher figures for annual deaths from flu. The reason for the discrepancy, as highlighted by the health systems researcher Dan Goyal, is that flu and pneumonia deaths are often reported together, including by the ONS itself. When pneumonia deaths are included with flu, the number would be 29 516 in 2018 and 26 398 in 2019. This is obviously closer to covid death numbers, though still less, according to current trends. Covid mortality data have also been the subject of debate. Through the pandemic some datasets, including Public Health England’s, have included all deaths from any cause within 28 days of a positive covid test. Some sceptics have argued that this approach has overestimated the number of people dying from covid-19. But as The BMJ’s columnist David Oliver and the expert statistician David Spiegelhalter have pointed out, this approach has probably under-recognised the real number of deaths from covid-19, because of an initial absence of testing back in spring 2020, and because people who survived more than 28 days before dying from covid will not have been included. The ONS’s data, considered the most accurate, are based on cases where covid 19 is mentioned on death certificates. As Spiegelhalter has highlighted, 90% of death certificates where covid-19 is recorded identify it as the primary, underlying cause of death. https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2514
That's because flu has been around for ages. In time Covid will become like the flu, with an annual jab needed for the elderly/vulnerable. Flu would have started off like Covid with a high mortality rate.
It's not that much less harmful than Delta among the unvaccinated, it's just that vaccine rates have blunted the effect. Check out the overall rate of deaths in the US right now...it's lower than the pre-vaccine peak, but it's up above 3k/day again, because there are large areas of the country that have low vaccination rates.
Let's hope that's so and it becomes endemic. We have to deal with the here and now and use whatever we have to prevent the spread, lower infection rates therefore limiting mutations.
All I’m saying is, when I personally had covid, it was less than the flu. Same for the vast majority of people under about 50. Those older than that, or vulnerable for any reason obviously need to be more careful. If they want to mask up and use covid passes, then crack on. Those below that age or aren’t vulnerable need to go back to normal. We can’t live in fear forever
Live in fear? How about taking sensible precautions to avoid transmission of a pandemic disease using Corona passes and testing? In our experience not a problem at all.
COVID-19 is not even classified as a HCID(High consequence infectious disease) and hasn't been since 19/03/2020. In fairness this doesn't mean it's not dangerous but due to the overall understanding of it and the very low mortality rate, it is no longer on the list.
Exactly. Not many more than the expected flu deaths before covid started. ONS has flu/pneumonia deaths as about 1600-1800 deaths a week. We are pretty much at the point where the authoritarian restrictions make zero sense
