Forum Topic

Covid

"Deltacron has been officially identified as a COVID-19 variant". I can see this farce running for years. Are Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance still roaming loose, or have they been caught and wheeled back into Madame Tussauds? What's the next variant - Cronadelt perhaps? Next slide please. 

Brian Joseph Coyle ● 1657d34 Comments

Why should this 'farce' run on for years?When 'omicron' was first identified and we could see the infection rate rising significantly I thought 'Oh no, here we go again' and it turned out to be less damaging than previous variants. It's madness to keep our heads in the sand and ignore what's going on, so of course if there are variants of concern out there lets monitor them.

Andrew Jones ● 1657d

It's no farce. You're the only comedian here. Until we know more about the severity of infection caused by Deltacron, it makes eminent sense to be cautious. Feel free to cast off your mask and throw away the alcohol gel, if it gives you a feeling of liberation. The more prudent will continue to take precautions until they can be certain this pandemic is over.

Robert Fish ● 1657d

Lock your doors, mask up, get booster jab that kills more healthy people than it saves and throw your lives away all over again.Jones and Fish - What a pair.

Michael Brown ● 1657d

"Booster jab that kills more healthy people than it saves" - please give numbers of such deaths and cite the primary source. I'm not interested in what some crackpot says in a video you've plucked from the internet.

Robert Fish ● 1657d

I was in a pharmacie buying two boxes of masks. I said to the owner, "I expect your sales of these are down". She replied, "Oh no we are selling loads". So people are still wearing them, I notice especially in Waitrose.

Nicholas Beard ● 1657d

Why are they wearing them 'especially' in Waitrose I wonder? And why, might I ask, were you buying two boxes of masks? Birthday presents, very early Christmas presents perhaps? Are all these people wearing their masks correctly? In England, the legal requirement to wear a face covering/mask/muzzle has ended - and not before time."Deltacron has been officially identified as a COVID-19 variant". I can see this farce running for years. Are Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance still roaming loose, or have they been caught and wheeled back into Madame Tussauds? What's the next variant - Cronadelt perhaps? Next slide please. 

Brian Joseph Coyle ● 1657d

Yeah, it's all a myth. Shame about the body of evidence. Actually 18million of them.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60690251

Bruce Hammal ● 1657d

Rubbish. Please get your facts right. "More than 18 million people - three times higher than official records suggest - have probably died because of Covid, say researchers". 'Suggest, probably'. So that's a 'body of evidence' is it? Surely you can do better that that? Give me the facts.

Brian Joseph Coyle ● 1657d

Every time the rules are officially relaxed the numbers of cases go up.  What a surprise - not!

Philippa Bond ● 1657d

"Probably" is certainly a basis for decision making. It's "probably" the basis upon which most of us make most decision, and indeed on which most decisions are made.In particular, some matters are incapable with irrefutable certainty, or it would be disproportionate to collect and analyse the data.So if you are only making decisions on irrefutable facts, with no roomn for any uncertainty, you "probably" aren't making any decisions at all.

T P Howell ● 1657d

I believe we're still waiting for the OP's "alternative" facts.

Bruce Hammal ● 1657d

Here's the full-fat version of the story from "The Lancet"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02796-3/fulltext

Bruce Hammal ● 1657d

Errr Michael, all I said was let's keep monitoring it and not put our heads in the sand, which seems to be the exact opposite of what you'd suggest we do.Brown - what a one.

Andrew Jones ● 1657d

Maybe the social profile of people who shop in Waitrose is over represented by those groups who are still more cautious and choose to wear masks - who knows?I shop in Waitrose on occasion, and travel on public transport, and I no longer wear a mask, but if I go into a shop where I'm requested to, then I have no problem with it.I didn't like having to wear a mask, but felt it a small price to pay for potentially alleviating transmission, and also felt it worthwhile as it possibly made those around me far more cautious than me more at ease.

Andrew Jones ● 1657d

Brian Coyle is ubviously a rather stupid man. Thankfully we seem to be emerging from the Covid crisis, but it has killed many people.Professor of Medicine, University College, London

Michael Preece ● 1657d

Inevitable when Johnson threw caution and our health to the winds to save his skin.  I declined an in-person client meeting in Central London last week when it could perfectly well have been done remotely.  Covid is rising again, particularly among the elderly.  It takes a particular kind of stupid for a person to imitate an ostrich.

Claire Moran ● 1657d

"Covid is rising again, particularly among the elderly.  It takes a particular kind of stupid for a person to imitate an ostrich."Correct!  All reports indicate rise in Covid infections across the UK.

Steve Taylor ● 1656d

There is a rise but not hospitalisations and thankfully no rise in deaths. We are all going to have to learn to live with covid, it’s here to stay and we can’t lock people up in their homes forever. Just be sensible. We don’t shut down for the flu season same concept.

Jayne Thorburn ● 1656d

Jayne, you've introduced a red herring, or, perhaps deliberately, a straw man. Nobody has argued on this thread for a further lockdown. The arguments aré directed against a stupidly provocative person who continues to ridicule mask wearing. If people wish to continue to wear masks in Waitrose and on public transport, it's their choice. I'm with them.

Robert Fish ● 1656d

'There is a rise but not hospitalisations'Except that hospitalisations *are* rising. Some of these are people admitted for other things who incidentally test positive on admission but a fair few aren't.

Susan Kelly ● 1656d

Maybe here's your answer:"Verdict Research...... has found that Waitrose has the highest proportion of shoppers from the professional social classes A and B (47%), followed by Sainsbury's (34%), Marks & Spencer (22%), Tesco (21%) and Safeway (17%). At the bottom of the market, 72% of Netto's shoppers are blue-collar Ds or Es, with Kwik Save (66%), Lidl (54%) and Somerfield (50%) close behind"I wonder it education levels correlates to mark wearing?

T P Howell ● 1656d

Waitrose has wider aisles.  Maybe they have a slightly older clientele who are more susceptible and worried about their health and who are able to afford their higher prices.

Philippa Bond ● 1656d

More unsubstantiated claims from MCB News. Brown and Coyle - What a pair.

Richard Greenhough ● 1656d

So, on balance, it seems that mask wearing "especially in Waitrose" is "probably" correct then.

T P Howell ● 1656d

I take it you had no family of friends that sadly passed away, this post is disresptful and a mockery to those that did

Peter Mizzi ● 1655d

Just heard two older Chiswick friends both fully jabbed have caught Covid ~ one rather nastily ~ fortunately not hospitalised though needing antibiotics. The suspicion is the contagion was contracted during a 4-group visit to a Chiswick restaurant where third member has gone down with 'it' too. So, you see you can't be too careful even when jabbed.

Bobbie Carnegie ● 1655d

And of course Chiswick now has highest new cases ever!!! Covid is certainly here to stay and will continue to take lives whilst this Government continues to play it down. It is quite disgraceful that the government's attitude has allowed the NHS to collapse under the pressure.

Steve Taylor ● 1655d

I thought that privatising the Health Service was always part of the plan.  No better way than to put it under intense and consistent pressure.  We've seen this behaviour before and it is all to save Boris' skin.http://www.chiswickw4.com/default.asp?section=info&page=concovid048.htm

Philippa Bond ● 1655d

Wear masks, there will be more variants, I don't want to pass anything on to elderly neighbour's so always wear a mask when out.

Janice Evans ● 1655d

PB: "I thought that privatising the Health Service was always part of the plan."I make no partisan point, nor defence of the present government, in saying that that claim simply doesn't add up.For even if you disregard the record amounts currently being spent on the NHS, the simple fact is that the NHS is by far the single most respected institution in the country, including by supporters of every political party. In fact by its response to the Covid crisis, the NHS's stock has never been higher than today.Therefore it would be electoral suicide for any government to try to privatise it, and whatever else they are, Boris & Co simply aren't that stupid.Indeed it further explains why, after 74 years of the NHS's existence, the Tories have never made any significant move against it, despite having been in  government for over half of that time.

Richard Cathcart ● 1655d

I disagree that the Tories have never made a significant more towards privatisation of the NHS.I think that most people who work within the NHS wil tell you that the NHS is being progressively privatised (at least, those who I know say so), and the steps to introduce the "market place" into the NHS has increased costs and reduced quality. As for the future - see Jeremy Hunt and others publication in 2005 "Direct Democracy: An Agenda For A New Model Party' which called for the 'denationalisation' of the NHS".  For "denationalisation" read "privatisation".This agenda is purely dogma driven. The US spends an estimated 19.7% of GDP on healthcare, with substantial worse outcomes (except for the rich) overall. Germany and France about 11%.  The UK about 10%.  This suggests that an insurance based system will cost about twice as much, and deliver far worse outcomes. The issue is an ideological opposition to the role of the state, and a "small state", low taxation agenda, even where all the evidence points to the fcat that the state can be extremely effective at funding and providing certain services, in particular public healthcare, as well as education, and arguably othe "natural monopolies" such as public transport, utilities, etc.

T P Howell ● 1655d

Ideology is one thing, winning elections is quite another.And while there have been steps to introduce "market place disciplines etc", that is in the context of an NHS which is bigger than ever and doing more things than ever i.e. the core NHS remains pretty much as it's always been.Besides which, you may have forgotten eg this news item from 2006:"Tony Blair today welcomed 11 private healthcare providers into the 'NHS family', as he promised them the chance to gain a stronger foothold in the NHS.Predicting that the private sector would soon provide up to 40% of NHS operations, Mr Blair said the independent providers could help drive up the quality of service to patients which he said was the 'most important thing'.'By 2008 we could have as much as 40% of acute operations done in the private sector being done under the NHS banner,' he told health bosses."https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/feb/16/health.politicsOf course being Labour - at least nominally - Blair was able to get away with this much more easily than the Conservatives ever will.

Richard Cathcart ● 1655d

On your first point (that privatisating the NHS is an election loser) I agree. But we cannot expect the Tories (at least whilst led by Johnson) to be honest about their agenda.On your second point (Blair started the process) I agree. But Labour is not in power, and your point was about whether the Tories would continue to privatise the NHS.Privatisation would be equally egregious whichever party does it.  And on balance I think that the Tories are far more likely to do so than Labour (so far as the point is relevant at all). But we need to hold all parties to account on this.

T P Howell ● 1655d

The best protection is to take a test before meeting up with pals, eat outdoors if possible, wear a mask and of course get the booster. Covid is here to stay fortunately the current variant doesn’t seem to be impacting hospitals as much as previous variants and deaths. We all need to exercise some sensible caution and get on with living, running businesses etc. in a pandemic mistakes will be made but we also have responsibility to protect everyone else as much as ourselves. I am pleased life is starting to get back to normal on every level. The focus now is war what more will be thrown at us???? The NHS will not be privatised, it was never built to handle the size of population and advancements in technology. Overall it does a fantastic job and we should stop moaning and appreciate the NHS.

Jayne Thorburn ● 1655d