Covid will be around for years and more than likely be back with a bang in winter.
Also, the infection rate was always going to go through the roof once people had to pay for the tests and half of the government were proven to not give a toss about following any rules.
I still use hand sanitiser but face mask has gone, so has the covid app from my phone. Fully vaccined and boosted too but don’t think I’ll be getting another shot.
Agreed. People talk about it "not being over" without understanding the context - the initial response to this virus (lockdowns, social distancing etc) was to stop people dying and stop the NHS being overwhelmed. The Government's initial plan was to allow us all to catch the virus until we achieved herd immunity - this quickly changed when they realised how fatal the virus was to so many people.
The vaccine changed things and whilst people still die of covid, there is a key element missing to all of the statistics - context.
The "people in hospital" numbers are made up of 2 factors - 1) Person in hospital & 2) person in hospital who tests positive for covid. The key part here being that even if someone is in hospital for a hip replacement and they test positive, they are counted in the figures.
The "deaths" numbers are anyone who dies within 28 of a positive test, regardless of the cause of death (unless it was significant trauma) - so you have a 90 yo cancer patient who dies of a heart attack but recorded as a covid death because he/she had a positive test 4 weeks ago.
The ONS stats are wildly speculative. They had a small sample size and simply model it upwards to provide this "1 in 17" statistic without applying any logic. Even if you look at the Govt figures, they are saying approximately 25,000 people are testing positive per day, so apply 1 in 17 to that and they are saying 25,000 out of 425,000 people tested positive - what about the other 60 odd million?
Lastly, the figures that are released lack context - how do we know that 125 people a day dying of covid is high or low? How many people die of 'flu or the common cold?
I'm not saying covid isn't serious and as someone who knows 2 people who died of it I know the heartache it can bring, but it's time to be realistic about this virus and what we need to do to live with it