For or against Covid restrictions. ( Archived) (75)

At least someone is thinking outside their rings, squares, triangles etc. My fellow islander, thank you for the different thought processes but please exercise caution when you give advice as this is not part of the script, as someone mentioned there is little to gain from these measures. As you know Bob Marley tells us "man to man is so unjust, children you don't know who to trust, your worse enemy could be your best friend and your best friend your worse enemy.....". How are things in Trinidad?

Smile, Bro, I am sure you know the answer!

As much as it did what it did to me I'm all for anything that keeps us all safe

There are many factors which may affect this kind of decision.

I have read much about Omicron being a mild variant, but that's from populations with a high vaccination uptake. In South Africa it has been reported as mild in a local population with a high vaccination rate, but deadly from a different locale where vaccines were scarce. (I can't find the source where I read that, but I think it may have been from The Guardian.)

I'm happy to accept that Omicron is a mild variant in the UK where the majority of people have had at least one vaccine dose, but that may not be appropriate for all populations.

I'm skeptical about the vaccine strategy where high income countries are offering third boosters, rather than the global population being offered at least one dose. The variants were all first detected in countries with a high number of infections and no, or low vaccination rate.

We're perhaps risking current vaccine efficacy when low income countries are left out of vaccine strategy. Given there are risks associated with the vaccines, additives and/or poor protocol administering them, it would be a slap in the face for those who have accepted the risks and especially suffered the consequences if we found ourselves back at square one. That's without acknowledging the basic ethical issue of leaving people across the globe even more vulnerable than they already are from poverty.

In the UK where we have a high vaccination rate and we've been bolluxed enough for many to have some level of natural immunty, maybe we should be having a discussion about an acceptable death rate for an endemic disease. Our daily deaths have been very low for months despite a high incidence of infection and I'd be interested to see how that compares with our history of seasonal 'flu. 'Flu is an endemic disease following pandemic status, after all.

Running the NHS at full capacity with covid patients, as Chesney suggested, fails to take other issues into account: there is a huge backlog of serious and life threatening illnesses that are going untreated due to covid being proritised; 10-30% of people infected with covid experience 'long covid', including permanent disability; & how much can we realistically expect from our NHS staff before they can no longer stand?

It also depends upon which restrictions we're talking about as there are so many. Wearing masks, social distancing in public, ventilation, hand washing and other hygiene protocols are fairly effortless, so I see no reason why lifting those restrictions should be a priority. Perhaps addressing comfort issues might be a more prudent way forward to maximise well-being.

Inconsistency tends to cause dissatisfaction. Here in the UK masks are mandatory in shops, on public transport, etc., but we can sit in a pub all night without one. I get that reducing the opportunity for the spread of infection is a strategy, one that is balanced against the economy and other aspects of well-being like social contact. The problem is that curfews and the like are seen as bonkers if they are not explained. Confusion and resentment do not foster trust in leaders, nor personal responsibility.

We have 'circuit breaker' restrictions pending in the UK for January 2022, but once again that seems like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. I get ruining another Christmas wouldn't have gone down well with voters, nor the state of the economy, but I can't help thinking that we've suffered the consequences of Boris's delays (perhaps in his own interests) enough already.

Certainly, I think we should continue to explore options such as working from home for those who can and want to. The advantages of that are multi-faceted.

I'd like to see an open and honest discussion reviewing all sorts of options in the interests of well-being and environmental impact. We have an opprtunity here to create change and it would be a crying shame if that were missed that.

You don't understand how science works that's the problem with cs since this bloody pandemic started

Immunity was never guaranteed by the experts and never has for any vaccine.

That's not how vaccines work.