Are 65-70 year olds with Diabetes being ignored

[adrian1der]

Hope you both get well soon @trophywench

 

[eggyg]

Oh Jenny @trophywench just saw this. That was bloody unlucky, you and Pete have been so careful. Fingers crossed for no or mild symptoms. Take care both of you. X

 

[trophywench]

Thanks all.

Eddy - sorry - you are being utterly unrealistic IMHO. How the hell can you guarantee total elimination of something you can't see can't hear and can't feel? You can't eliminate the common cold or influenza, meningitis or pneumonia!

 

[trophywench]

Someone will import it accidentally one day - you particularly must consider those pesky wabbits !!!!

 

[trophywench]

Oh Jenny @trophywench just saw this. That was bloody unlucky, you and Pete have been so careful. Fingers crossed for no or mild symptoms. Take care both of you. X

Bloody galling, Elaine!!

 

[pm133]

Whitty today with comments completely consistent with "vaccinated cocooning" and flagging that the "science" won't stand in the way of the politics:

At a certain point, society, through political leaders, through elected ministers and through parliament, will say this level of risk is a level of risk that we think it is appropriate to tolerate.

Just as we accept that in an average year 7,000 people die of flu, and in a bad flu year, 20,000 people die of flu. We accept that as that is what happens biologically.

At a certain point you say, ‘actually, the risk is now low enough that we can largely do away with certainly the most onerous things that we have to deal with’.

This will be a kind of gradual retreat from that, but it is a de-risking process rather than it’s just going to go away.

We will de-risk hopefully to a very low level of risk, but I think it’s very unlikely we’ll get to zero level of risk.

Having experienced how powerful, motivating and in fact achievable a "zero COVID" goal is, and noting that no other goal has actually led to good outcomes so far - I think Whitty's message is a worry.

I think it is hugely encouraging that we won't be pursuing such a ridiculous target. Scotland today have announced that the trigger for the second wave up here was people travelling to and from abroad. There's no way we can ever control that.

It gives hope that maybe we can get our businesses and our lives back to normal some time this year.

 

[Sally71]

Yes it will be really interesting to see how the UK roll out rolls out in 2021, and whether the 5 day free-for-all sees an uptick of cases in January as some are expecting?

More likely people cramming into the shops with absolutely no social distancing are going to cause the next wave! Nottingham has a Christmas market on which many people are saying should have been cancelled, surprise surprise it was closed down after only one day because of packed crowds! I have decided that I’m not going to venture anywhere near a city for Christmas shopping, normally would do one or two days city centre shopping but aim for off peak times in November, December is hopeless anyway and gets more rammed by the minute even when the shops haven’t been closed for a month. If anyone in my family wants anything for Christmas which I can’t get either online or in local shops it's tough, they will have to wait until next year!

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Scotland today have announced that the trigger for the second wave up here was people travelling to and from abroad. There's no way we can ever control that.

Sure you can! We've taken back control of our borders, after all, and even within mainland Europe countries have exerted control over such travel. And many countries have had less half-assed quarantining for arriving travellers.

We've just chosen not to try. I'm sure it's harder for us than for NZ, say (we're so close to mainland Europe).

I suspect now's a bit late to start even if we wanted to (and the government was never interested and I suspect lacks competence anyway). Presuming vaccination goes as expected and by April (roughly) everyone over 50 and all the vulnerable groups have been vaccinated then that, together with the better weather, more testing, better treatments, quite likely makes it not terrible to relax things.

This apparent plan (to accept lots of people who we think aren't vulnerable are going to be infected) does mean that some of them will get sick (some of those likely with long-term disabilities of various sorts) and some will die. But the government just seems to be OK with that so long as things don't get too bad.

It's also possible that vaccination goes better than expected and that (say) everyone 30 and up gets vaccinated before summer. Or we relax most restrictions but mostly keep wearing masks and social distancing.

 

[pm133]

Sure you can! We've taken back control of our borders, after all, and even within mainland Europe countries have exerted control over such travel. And many countries have had less half-assed quarantining for arriving travellers.

We've just chosen not to try. I'm sure it's harder for us than for NZ, say (we're so close to mainland Europe).

I suspect now's a bit late to start even if we wanted to (and the government was never interested and I suspect lacks competence anyway). Presuming vaccination goes as expected and by April (roughly) everyone over 50 and all the vulnerable groups have been vaccinated then that, together with the better weather, more testing, better treatments, quite likely makes it not terrible to relax things.

This apparent plan (to accept lots of people who we think aren't vulnerable are going to be infected) does mean that some of them will get sick (some of those likely with long-term disabilities of various sorts) and some will die. But the government just seems to be OK with that so long as things don't get too bad.

It's also possible that vaccination goes better than expected and that (say) everyone 30 and up gets vaccinated before summer. Or we relax most restrictions but mostly keep wearing masks and social distancing.

The point is that closing the borders is not sustainable and neither is continuing to wear masks and social distance.

At some point very soon we are certainly going to have to accept a certain number of cases and deaths each year. There isn't a reasonable alternative.

 

[trophywench]

... meanwhile having categorically refused to close schools and universities we're gobsmacked that students still want to attend them and OMG FOREIGNERS!!!!!

 

[trophywench]

There's no cure for X number of deaths per year ever anyway. Unless you find a cure for life itself obviously. May not be one even in the next 10 years.

 

[grovesy]

... meanwhile having categorically refused to close schools and universities we're gobsmacked that students still want to attend them and OMG FOREIGNERS!!!!!

Around here a number of schools are most probably closing till after Christmas.

 

[Bloden]

6 is now my lucky number!

Hope you’re both better ASAP @trophywench - pesky virus.

 

[trophywench]

Oh well - our teenage granddaughter who started her 6th form in September has only been able to attend school for a fortnight since then cos they're forever having to close down cos someone else has Covid so there's not very much use them being open anyway.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Thanks all.

Eddy - sorry - you are being utterly unrealistic IMHO. How the hell can you guarantee total elimination of something you can't see can't hear and can't feel? You can't eliminate the common cold or influenza, meningitis or pneumonia!

Yeah but nah. We've eliminated flu here - just nothing since March. (Obviously, it can come back once borders re-open if other places don't eliminate it locally also.).

But that kind of leads on to the question of why this (huge, IMO) revelation that flu can actually be eliminated locally, in Oz, NZ, other jurisdictions, isn't embraced by Whitty et al al - "Hey, maybe we can go zero flu as well as zero COVID!" - rather than shrugging it off with, "Well we're just going to continue to put up with 7,000 - 20,000 preventable deaths per annum & a large sickness and economic burden because it's traditional" or whatever the thinking is.

Also - smallpox.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

But that kind of leads on to the question of why this (huge, IMO) revelation that flu can actually be eliminated locally, in Oz, NZ, other jurisdictions, isn't embraced by Whitty et al al

Presumably because the costs of doing it properly are regarded as much too high. Maybe we can dramatically restrict international (and discourage internal) travel for one winter but doing it every winter seems a stretch.

The medical people seem like they want to encourage some things to become persistent like wearing masks when you're ill, washing hands more frequently, etc. It sounded like Johnson really didn't want to have mask wearing become common. (It would be interesting to know how much difference those sorts of habits would help generically with respiratory infections.)

 

[Eddy Edson]

Presumably because the costs of doing it properly are regarded as much too high. Maybe we can dramatically restrict international (and discourage internal) travel for one winter but doing it every winter seems a stretch.

Yes, it needs a global coordinated effort to stop resurgance with open borders. Not going to happen overnight, but why not as something to aim for, now that it's apparently possible? I would have thought that the current plague illustrates pretty graphically the need to be able to coordinate such an effort.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

I find it inretesting that there were plenty of politicians, pundits and commentators in Aus who said Covid couldn’t be eliminated there too, and that ‘zero‘ targets eg in Victoria were unreasonable.

Before they were achieved.

 

[grovesy]

Yes, it needs a global coordinated effort to stop resurgance with open borders. Not going to happen overnight, but why not as something to aim for, now that it's apparently possible? I would have thought that the current plague illustrates pretty graphically the need to be able to coordinate such an effort.

I saw a Doctor reckoning that it is going to take years to get most people vaccinated globally!

 

[Eddy Edson]

I find it inretesting that there were plenty of politicians, pundits and commentators in Aus who said Covid couldn’t be eliminated there too, and that ‘zero‘ targets eg in Victoria were unreasonable.

Before they were achieved.

It was bizarre the way people were saying that about Vic at a time when most Oz states had been zero COVID for weeks or months. Realistically, there was no way the Vic govt could push for anything other than zero COVID under those circumstances, even if it had wanted to. But the bottom-up will to get there was probably the most important thing - amazing how powerful a popular motivator the zero COVID goal can be, once it looks achievable.