Travel to celebrate NYE in England's more relaxed covid restrictions, OK or not?

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Dingdong
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Joined: 22 Apr 2022, 4:59pm

Re: Travel to celebrate NYE in England's more relaxed covid restrictions, OK or not?

Post by Dingdong »

I reckon people are really thinking it's all over, when evidently it is not. The lack of care and rules that are in place right now points to another winter of lockdowns and return to Draconian measures.

COVID is like the seasonal flu: it's here to stay, and will likely not be beaten down, not in my lifetime at any rate. I was in Italy recently and everyone kissing and shaking hands like nothing had ever happened. I do realize that people are desperate to get over these two years and move on, but realistically that's not going to happen. Every winter there are going to be large outbreaks, as with flu, because the virus is constantly mutating and evolving to beat the vaccines.

My advice is absolutely book your holiday, but make sure it's one where the majority of the money can be refunded if there's the need for a late cancellation.
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Travel to celebrate NYE in England's more relaxed covid restrictions, OK or not?

Post by pwa »

Dingdong wrote: 30 Jun 2022, 5:29am I reckon people are really thinking it's all over, when evidently it is not. The lack of care and rules that are in place right now points to another winter of lockdowns and return to Draconian measures.

COVID is like the seasonal flu: it's here to stay, and will likely not be beaten down, not in my lifetime at any rate. I was in Italy recently and everyone kissing and shaking hands like nothing had ever happened. I do realize that people are desperate to get over these two years and move on, but realistically that's not going to happen. Every winter there are going to be large outbreaks, as with flu, because the virus is constantly mutating and evolving to beat the vaccines.

My advice is absolutely book your holiday, but make sure it's one where the majority of the money can be refunded if there's the need for a late cancellation.
It isn't over in the sense of having gone away, but I think it is over as a threat that stops us living normal lives. A friend of mine, who I meet as we walk our dogs, has a wife who has had Covid over the last week. She has been feeling a bit rough and has been at home, but he has still been out walking his dog with me, a couple of metres between us, and Covid has only briefly been a topic of conversation. He has been going to work, but testing daily. I've met a few people recently who have had it, and we have maintained a distance but treated it fairly casually. Very few people are being hospitalised because of it and very few are dying primarily because of it. Vaccines and infection-acquired immunity have relegated it to one of the bugs that cause most of us a nuisance illness for a few days and which pose a more serious threat to a small minority. So it is still here, but we don't have it dictating our lifestyle anymore.
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Paulatic
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Re: Travel to celebrate NYE in England's more relaxed covid restrictions, OK or not?

Post by Paulatic »

pwa wrote: 1 Jul 2022, 7:47am [Very few people are being hospitalised because of it
Is that true?
Yesterdays figure for Scotland nearly 1300. That was down to a few hundred in the spring.
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pwa
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Re: Travel to celebrate NYE in England's more relaxed covid restrictions, OK or not?

Post by pwa »

Paulatic wrote: 1 Jul 2022, 8:04am
pwa wrote: 1 Jul 2022, 7:47am [Very few people are being hospitalised because of it
Is that true?
Yesterdays figure for Scotland nearly 1300. That was down to a few hundred in the spring.
AFD2DEBD-2406-4C2D-804D-F12F4720ECCA.jpeg
Most of the people in hospital with Covid are in hospital for something else but have been revealed to have have Covid after being tested on admission. But yes, cases are on the up.
Dingdong
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Re: Travel to celebrate NYE in England's more relaxed covid restrictions, OK or not?

Post by Dingdong »

Cases in my part of the country are up 57% since last week, which is as big a leap as there was in the previous lockdown scenarios. The real danger with repeated waves of COVID is that a variant mutates and spreads which is completely resistant to the known vaccines, and then we are back to square one. It would be just as dangerous as the position we had at the beginning of the outbreak: facing down a novel virus for which we have no natural, nor synthetic defences.

That's what the WHO are really worried about, not complacency. These viruses adapt very quickly and very aggressively, and much more rapidly and effectively than us human beings can produce a vaccine. The real terror lies in that nomansland period, those feverish 6 months to a year where we are completely defenceless against a novel and aggressive variant.

As they say, it ain't over till the fat lady sings. This autumn/winter will be the real test of acquired immunity/vaccination. AFAIK, each successive vaccination program has had a diminishing protection response, offering less and less immunity, and shorter and shorter windows between boosters. We may come to the point where people grow sceptical of the vaccine (in fact we may be there already), and prefer to take their chances with infection/natural immune response rather than more frequent and less and less effective vaccinations.
Jdsk
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Re: Travel to celebrate NYE in England's more relaxed covid restrictions, OK or not?

Post by Jdsk »

Dingdong wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 5:18am ...
These viruses adapt very quickly and very aggressively, and much more rapidly and effectively than us human beings can produce a vaccine. The real terror lies in that nomansland period, those feverish 6 months to a year where we are completely defenceless against a novel and aggressive variant.
...
It's extremely unlikely that we'll be "completely defenceless".

We produced a whole range of effective safe vaccines very quickly after this disease was first described. We now know a lot more about the virus and we're also better off in knowing that the design and production techniques for the vaccines, some of which were novel, work in practice. We're also proactively monitoring the evolution of the virus so we'll know about variants earlier than before.

We also have some interesting antiviral agents.

And we can defend ourselves and other by improved ventilation, better design of buildings where people mix, washing hands, wearing masks, and isolation procedures.

Jonathan
Last edited by Jdsk on 3 Jul 2022, 5:56pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jdsk
Posts: 24640
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Travel to celebrate NYE in England's more relaxed covid restrictions, OK or not?

Post by Jdsk »

Dingdong wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 5:18am...
AFAIK, each successive vaccination program has had a diminishing protection response, offering less and less immunity, and shorter and shorter windows between boosters..
...
Each vaccination increases the amount of protection (or we wouldn't give it). The incremental increases in protection might be less than the ones before but that's not the same as "a diminishing protection response".

Jonathan
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