Covid variant found in India may delay lifting of England restrictions, minister admits

Status
Not open for further replies.
Northerner

Northerner

Admin (Retired)
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Concerns over the spread of the coronavirus variant first detected in India could affect the final lifting of restrictions in England, a UK minister has conceded.

The government plans to press ahead with the final stage of its lifting of lockdown on 21 June, when most restrictions will be lifted, including all legal limits on social contact.

Foreign Office minister James Cleverly told Sky News that any decisions to delay easing restrictions would be “driven by the data” on infection rates and hospitalisations in the run-up to the next phase of the reopening.

He said: “Scientists on Sage will make their assessments, they will report that to government, and we will make decisions based on the data and the evidence that they provide.

www.theguardian.com

Call for ‘surge vaccinations’ as UK cases of India variant double

Sources say government poised to approve jab for over-16s in worst-affected areas
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
I'm not aware of any evidence which suggests that this variant is any more capable of bypassing our vaccines than all the other variants.

In fact, I'm pretty sure our vaccine has been shown to smoke this variant as well but I might be wrong.

Restrictions are being removed at the moment. It's not surprising to find the authorities issuing statements like this which stop us getting too carried away when they relax things. They've been using behavioural "nudge" tactics like this for years now. I have to say, it is all getting a little tedious now and I hate this constant fear-mongering but if it works then they'll keep doing it I suppose.

There's no reason to overly worry about this variant yet.
 
Possibly not, but I don’t think we can be too complacent either. Last week one of the secondary schools near here had to close because they had over 100 positive cases within the space of a couple of days, and all primary schools in the area were told to send home all children who have siblings there. School concerned was deep cleaned and reopened this week. No idea which variant it was, but I’d rather be overcautious and stay as we are for a bit longer, than risk a third wave just because people are getting fed up with restrictions. Yes we are doing well with vaccinations and there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but it could so easily all go wrong again.
 
Is lifting of restrictions going to change many peoples, current lifestyles?

This seems like a pretty common sense group of people, just wondering your thoughts.

Hear a lot that people can't wait for end restrictions, to go out for meal or drink.

Have I just become a grumpy old hermit, can't see myself going out and mixing anytime soon.
 
pm133 said:
I'm not aware of any evidence which suggests that this variant is any more capable of bypassing our vaccines than all the other variants.
Click to expand...

Govn seem confident current vaccines does protect us, hope so anyway.
 
Blue flash said:
Is lifting of restrictions going to change many peoples, current lifestyles?

This seems like a pretty common sense group of people, just wondering your thoughts.

Hear a lot that people can't wait for end restrictions, to go out for meal or drink.

Have I just become a grumpy old hermit, can't see myself going out and mixing anytime soon.
Click to expand...
For me, the issue isn't about whether I go out for a meal or not. It's being told I can't.
I'm not in the habit of allowing people to control my life to that degree and I resent anyone exercising that power for a second longer than need be. Right now though, I'd happily settle for them just dropping the ridiculous legal requirement to wear masks in public.

There still seems to be an obsession with numbers of cases rather than hospitalisations and deaths, an unwillingness to acknowledge that we've vaccinated almost every vulnerable person in the country, an unwillingness to accept that serious illness and deaths in those categories have been almost eliminated by those vaccines and a seemingly endless fear that it's only a matter of time before a variant finds a way round those vaccines, an unwillingness to accept that IF a variant evades these vaccines then we are finished anyway and an unwillingness to accept that we simply cannot continue to live like this.

A very significant number of people are sick to death of being led on all of this by people who are driven by fear. We don't speak out because we don't want to be associated with the "the whole thing is a hoax" nutters but we are a very sizeable group indeed.
If the government doesn't remove all of these restrictions in the next few months, the public will make that decision for them through acts of civil disobedience regarding ignoring mask wearing, social distancing etc. One way or another, I think this will be coming to an end sometime this summer. Those who feel unsafe will be welcome to continue wearing masks and avoiding crowded places but I don't think most people will tolerate this for much longer.

I think the only thing keeping the public onside is furlough. The second that is removed, the job losses begin in earnest and people start receiving demands for bills to be paid, you'll see public opinion shift dramatically. If I remember correctly, that is due to happen in September.
 
nonethewiser said:
Govn seem confident current vaccines does protect us, hope so anyway.
Click to expand...
I think scientists have known for a while that the Indian variant doesn't evade the vaccine so I'm really not sure what is driving all this panic.

My suspicion is that this is more of this tedious behavioural "nudge" stuff. Every time they remove restrictions they always find a new variant to panic everyone over or issue dire warnings about something to make sure people don't go mental as soon as restrictions are lifted. It insults the intelligence, it really does.

I always fall back on what I call the "smell test". Cases are starting to rise again, supposedly because of this Indian variant. If the government were really that concerned about the Indian variant and really thought there was the slightest chance our vaccines wouldn't work against it, there isn't the slightest chance they would continue rapidly opening up again. They would, at the absolute minimum, delay things for a couple of weeks to see. So this panic-mongering fails the smell test for me. Personally, I think that we're seeing cases rise because that is to be expected when restrictions are lifted. As long as deaths and hospitalisation don't increase, we're good to go. If a variant miraculously evades the vaccine we'll deal with that then. We can't stay in lockdown forever over panic about this possibility.
 
pm133 said:
I think scientists have known for a while that the Indian variant doesn't evade the vaccine so I'm really not sure what is driving all this panic.
Click to expand...
Seems clear enough to me. It spreads more quickly. While only a smallish proportion of younger people will get sick enough to end up in hospital, a smallish proportion of a very large number can be pretty large. And the vaccines (while amazing) aren't perfect, so some vaccinated people will also get sick. (And some people can't benefit from the vaccines and would be safer with lower prevalence.)

And evading the vaccines is really a matter of degree. I think it's still possible that the vaccines work a bit less well against this variant. (There seems not enough evidence to be sure.)

pm133 said:
They would, at the absolute minimum, delay things for a couple of weeks to see.
Click to expand...
But they've made exactly this mistake (if it is one) over and over again. I think it's completely possible they'd do this even if they think it's fairly likely they'll be blamed for it later. And they'll defend it in exactly the same ways: they weren't sure, they had to take a balanced view, etc. (Even if it turns out they have to act in a more damaging way later as a result.)
 
Bruce Stephens said:
Seems clear enough to me. It spreads more quickly. While only a smallish proportion of younger people will get sick enough to end up in hospital, a smallish proportion of a very large number can be pretty large. And the vaccines (while amazing) aren't perfect, so some vaccinated people will also get sick. (And some people can't benefit from the vaccines and would be safer with lower prevalence.)

And evading the vaccines is really a matter of degree. I think it's still possible that the vaccines work a bit less well against this variant. (There seems not enough evidence to be sure.)


But they've made exactly this mistake (if it is one) over and over again. I think it's completely possible they'd do this even if they think it's fairly likely they'll be blamed for it later. And they'll defend it in exactly the same ways: they weren't sure, they had to take a balanced view, etc. (Even if it turns out they have to act in a more damaging way later as a result.)
Click to expand...

In what way is it clear Bruce?
How many of those increased cases are down to the Indian variant?
Where is the research to confirm that it spreads more quickly?
How many are in hospital with this variant?
How many have died from it?
How many people require hospital treatment from this variant who have had one or two vaccination doses?
If it is conjecture regarding vaccinated people getting ill or dying, what are the projected numbers from this one variant?
There's anything but clarity at this stage because none of those questions have definitive answers yet.

And none of this explains why they are still re-opening.

You say they are making the same mistake but they aren't. We have vaccines now. It is an entirely different scenario. Not a single person is saying vaccines are 100% but what is the end goal here? Zero deaths? Zero cases? At what point do we just burn our entire way of life and stay cowering at home? In Scotland, we have virtually nobody in hospital and we've had almost zero deaths for weeks now and yet we still can't attend a football match. This is completely over the top for the size of risk faced. England and Wales are not much further ahead.

Another interesting thing I spotted is that people are now deliberately spreading lies about the Indian variant. Someone has been reporting that 5 people are in ICU in Glasgow alone with this variant and that all of them have been double vaccinated. The problem is that there are only 3 covid cases in ICU across the entirety of Scotland and zero confirmed cases of the Indian variant. You have to wonder what on earth is going on here.
 
pm133 said:
In what way is it clear Bruce?
How many of those increased cases are down to the Indian variant?
Where is the research to confirm that it spreads more quickly?
How many are in hospital with this variant?
How many have died from it?
How many people require hospital treatment from this variant who have had one or two vaccination doses?
If it is conjecture regarding vaccinated people getting ill or dying, what are the projected numbers from this one variant?
There's anything but clarity at this stage because none of those questions have definitive answers yet.

And none of this explains why they are still re-opening.

You say they are making the same mistake but they aren't. We have vaccines now. It is an entirely different scenario. Not a single person is saying vaccines are 100% but what is the end goal here? Zero deaths? Zero cases? At what point do we just burn our entire way of life and stay cowering at home? In Scotland, we have virtually nobody in hospital and we've had almost zero deaths for weeks now and yet we still can't attend a football match. This is completely over the top for the size of risk faced. England and Wales are not much further ahead.

Another interesting thing I spotted is that people are now deliberately spreading lies about the Indian variant. Someone has been reporting that 5 people are in ICU in Glasgow alone with this variant and that all of them have been double vaccinated. The problem is that there are only 3 covid cases in ICU across the entirety of Scotland and zero confirmed cases of the Indian variant. You have to wonder what on earth is going on here.
Click to expand...
Also PM133,

Vaccines don't stop people catching sarscov2, vaccines only work at reducing covid19. So, why (as the government are proposing in Bolton) would a surge in vaccinations have any impact on reducing case/infection numbers? Vaccinated or not, people are going to catch sarscov2 no matter what the strain.
 
pm133 said:
In what way is it clear Bruce?
How many of those increased cases are down to the Indian variant?
Where is the research to confirm that it spreads more quickly?
Click to expand...
It seems to be the consensus that it's spreading faster than B1.1.7 and that's probably because it has some advantage to that variant. Though the numbers are small so there's lots of uncertainty (as there was for B1.1.7 early on); fast increases can just be coincidence.

The relevant Sage paper seems to be the first link here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201

My point is that what's spooking the government advisors is surely clear: in a few places cases are rising quickly and that's correlated with increases in this variant. And people are ending up in hospital (though again the numbers are small, and they're mostly people who've not been vaccinated). While numbers are as yet small that's what happens with exponential growth, especially with measures (like hospitalisation) which have significant delays: they're really small until you see they're uncomfortably large.
pm133 said:
You say they are making the same mistake but they aren't.
Click to expand...
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that even if they have really good reasons to think what they're doing is a mistake, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they still did it.
 
Amity Island said:
Vaccines don't stop people catching sarscov2, vaccines only work at reducing covid19. So, why (as the government are proposing in Bolton) would a surge in vaccinations have any impact on reducing case/infection numbers? Vaccinated or not, people are going to catch sarscov2 no matter what the strain.
Click to expand...
This idea of surge vaccination makes complete sense to me if they also use a time machine so they can increase vaccinations in the relevant areas a month or two ago. Even now, making it easier for people to get vaccinated seems obviously a good thing to do though I think nobody thinks it'll help for a few weeks.

Yes, vaccinated people can still become infected. As I understand it it's less likely and their immune systems will be more effective against the virus so reducing the quantity of virus they'll shed, so reducing the chance of infecting other people.
 
Bruce Stephens said:
It seems to be the consensus that it's spreading faster than B1.1.7 and that's probably because it has some advantage to that variant. Though the numbers are small so there's lots of uncertainty (as there was for B1.1.7 early on); fast increases can just be coincidence.

The relevant Sage paper seems to be the first link here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201

My point is that what's spooking the government advisors is surely clear: in a few places cases are rising quickly and that's correlated with increases in this variant. And people are ending up in hospital (though again the numbers are small, and they're mostly people who've not been vaccinated). While numbers are as yet small that's what happens with exponential growth, especially with measures (like hospitalisation) which have significant delays: they're really small until you see they're uncomfortably large.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that even if they have really good reasons to think what they're doing is a mistake, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they still did it.
Click to expand...
The situation in Bolton will focus a few minds amongst those who won't take the vaccine.
Personally, I am with the government for the time being until it either starts swamping hospitals or it starts resulting in very large numbers of fully vaccinated people ending in hospital or dying. Other than that, life has to go on I'm afraid. There's not much you can do to force unvaccinated people to take the vaccine but we certainly should not be shutting down the rest of society to protect them. We can protect them to the greatest extent possible with a range of vaccines. Take it or don't take it. They know the risks and the consequences.

On your last point, the last year has been mentally exhausting enough without me expending further energy second guessing what the government would or would not do under certain circumstances.
 
Amity Island said:
Also PM133,

Vaccines don't stop people catching sarscov2, vaccines only work at reducing covid19. So, why (as the government are proposing in Bolton) would a surge in vaccinations have any impact on reducing case/infection numbers? Vaccinated or not, people are going to catch sarscov2 no matter what the strain.
Click to expand...

I think you are misunderstanding where I am coming from.

I am not an anti-vaxxer and I am not of the "it's all a hoax" sector.
I am an anti-masker because I have enough of a scientific background to know for certain that they don't work in the way that they are claiming. The "it protects from coughing or sneezing" argument is just an insult to everyone's intelligence. Arguing against masks is a completely different thing to what you are describing and I wanted to clarify that.

The vaccine clearly works. In those demographics which have taken it in very large numbers, deaths and hospitalisations have dropped away to virtually zero. So nobody is going to convince me that they don't work. I am well aware they are not 100% effective but that is neither here nor there. Nobody is making that claim.
In Bolton, it is almost exclusively unvaccinated people who are in hospital with this (and in fact I don't think a single doubly vaccinated person has been confirmed to have caught it and ended up in hospital).
So yes, clearly vaccinating in that area would help. I don't see how any reasonable person could come to another conclusion.
 
pm133 said:
I think you are misunderstanding where I am coming from.

I am not an anti-vaxxer and I am not of the "it's all a hoax" sector.
I am an anti-masker because I have enough of a scientific background to know for certain that they don't work in the way that they are claiming. The "it protects from coughing or sneezing" argument is just an insult to everyone's intelligence. Arguing against masks is a completely different thing to what you are describing and I wanted to clarify that.

The vaccine clearly works. In those demographics which have taken it in very large numbers, deaths and hospitalisations have dropped away to virtually zero. So nobody is going to convince me that they don't work. I am well aware they are not 100% effective but that is neither here nor there. Nobody is making that claim.
In Bolton, it is almost exclusively unvaccinated people who are in hospital with this (and in fact I don't think a single doubly vaccinated person has been confirmed to have caught it and ended up in hospital).
So yes, clearly vaccinating in that area would help. I don't see how any reasonable person could come to another conclusion.
Click to expand...
Hi Pm133,

I wasn't questioning what you were saying. I'm in full agreement with many of your posts. You've got lots of valid and sensible points to make on the forum.

I was just making an additional comment that, because the tests don't test for covid, they test for sarscov2, which means surge vaccines wont stop these positive test results happening. They will however help reduce hospital admissions.

You see all these covid19 test centres all over the place, but they aren't testing for covid19.
 
Amity Island said:
I was just making an additional comment that, because the tests don't test for covid, they test for sarscov2, which means surge vaccines wont stop these positive test results happening.
Click to expand...
They will (after a while) reduce test numbers, because the vaccines (once they become effective) reduce infections.

At least, that's what seems to be happening in Israel: lots of tests but not many cases any more.
 
Amity Island said:
Hi Pm133,

I wasn't questioning what you were saying. I'm in full agreement with many of your posts. You've got lots of valid and sensible points to make on the forum.

I was just making an additional comment that, because the tests don't test for covid, they test for sarscov2, which means surge vaccines wont stop these positive test results happening. They will however help reduce hospital admissions.

You see all these covid19 test centres all over the place, but they aren't testing for covid19.
Click to expand...

Ah OK. Then I misunderstood you and now I feel like a complete plum. 🙂

I'm afraid I don't know about the tests so can't comment.

The bigger picture here is for government to stop fear-mongering and get vaccines into arms as fast as humanly possible. Everything they are saying puts people off vaccination. When they say "vaccines alone won't save us" that will be interpreted as "well what's the bloody point then?"

It's clear to me that they are going to take some time to be persuaded that the link between rising cases and hospitalisations/deaths has been broken.
I reckon they won't fully accept it until we get through next winter and I can understand that.

In the meantime, they need to continue relaxing restrictions unless evidence emerges that vaccinated people are being hospitalised in huge numbers.
 
pm133 said:
It's clear to me that they are going to take some time to be persuaded that the link between rising cases and hospitalisations/deaths has been broken.
Click to expand...
Or maybe cases will also fall as vaccinations increase (as they seem to be in Israel) in which case we can also not worry so much about more variants (home grown ones, anyway) long covid, people having to take work/school off when they're infected, etc.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top