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Any brave families planning go to Switzerland this Christmas?

 Poster: A snowHead
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@colinstone, Switzerland is not in the EU nor in the Customs Union (it is effectively in the Single Market and in Schengen). There are fairly strict limits on what food items may be taken into Switzerland (primarily to stop Swiss residents doing all their shopping in cheaper German / French / Italian supermarkets and putting the Swiss ones out of business). In general it is only Swiss registered cars that get checked but if you have a car full of food items it is hardly surprising you got stopped too. You were probably lucky not to be presented with a large bill for duty owing to the Swiss exchequer. Nothing to do with brexit at all.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
@colinstone Switzerland has a load of Bilateral Agreements with the EU in order to secure their Trade Agreement. One of the conditions is they recognise Freedom of Movement. Another is recognition of the EHIC. And so on. A lot of the Brexit proponents pointed to the success of CH (highest GDP per capita in the world! Not in the EU!) but never mentioned the contradiction: a country recognising FoM (it had no alternative, however much it's own UKIP-equivalents hated the idea) with a GDP per capita almost 2x that of the UK.

Brits used to get EHIC recognition and FoM in Switzerland as as by-product of the UK being in the EU and the EU having reciprocal Citizens Rights, rights which included EHIC.

The UK does have a replacement Trade Agreement and Citizens Rights Agreement with Switzerland, but what's covered is a very limited subset of what we used to get via the EU:CH equivalents. One of the things missing is reciprocal EHIC recognition. So basically, we lose EHIC by omission. No mention in the Citizens Rights Agreement, so effectively it's disappears from 1.1.21
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Dravot wrote:
On the rocks wrote:
Dravot wrote:
jabuzzard wrote:

We all want to go skiing, that's not an excuse for being being a selfish prick. God forbid we had a really deadly pandemic or an actual hot war .


And maybe thats the point - this isn't really a deadly pandemic to 99.2% of people who contract it - myself included who seemingly had the virus with zero symptoms. Perhaps the strategy has been all wrong, properly shielding the most vulnerable rather than (attempting) interning the entire population may have been more effective.


Where do you get your 99.2% from? Currently 39,036 new cases per day and 2,143 hospital admissions per day is 5.5%, but probably higher due to the time lag between getting infected and being admitted to hospital.
if you are young and invulnerable the purposes of the restrictions are not so much to protect you but to stop you possibly spreading the virus to the more vulnerable, including those in other countries!
I'm in my early 60s so in the vulnerable category and as well as being a (would be) skier I'm a fit and active rock climber, sea kayaker and cyclist (where and when allowed by restrictions) as well as being a busy professional engineer.
I think you're advocating a strategy that would shut down my life and that of similar people both in the UK and ski resort countries in order for you to have your skiing holiday?


The reality is nobody can be certain of the fatality rates because of two factors, firstly, we have no idea how many ppl have actually contracted Covid (I had no idea that I'd been infected until I did an antibody test, neither did two of my neighbours) and secondly, the manner in which Covid related deaths are being recorded. There are reports that suggest that the 'fatality rate' is between 0.01% and 1.5%. Either way, the the pandemic isn't 'deadly' to the overwhelming majority, in the same way as say ebola is. On your last point, there is a reverse paradigm, the whole country, Europe and beyond have been shut down to protect a tiny minority (who rightly should be protected) - with marginal benefit.


ONS have published data that tells us that he average age of people dying with a "covid" death is over 80, which is remarkably similar to the average age of non-covid deaths.

and whilst we're at it, there have been 360odd covid related deaths of under 65s who didn't have a pre-existing / underlying health condition since the start of this pandemic. That's just over 1 per day compared to 18 deaths per day from suicide.
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Even better, Q now reduced by 3 days for short stay onboard boat in France. And have rapid test tomorrow.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
'there have been 360odd covid related deaths of under 65s who didn't have a pre-existing / underlying health condition since the start of this pandemic. That's just over 1 per day compared to 18 deaths per day from suicide.'

But those 18 suicides don't overwhelm our ICU capacity and stop all elective surgery.

ONS also states there are around 15 million UK citizens with 'pre-existing conditions' who are at serious danger from a covid infection. That's what makes the 'isolate the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with it' idea impractical - 15 million is an impossible proportion of the population to effectively isolate. It's a pipedream.

'the pandemic isn't 'deadly' to the overwhelming majority'

No, just to the 53,135 who died from it. But then, they apparently don't count because they're 'old' or 'have a pre-existing condition'.
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This has wandered well off topic. The human race is no different to leemings. Once in a while there is a mass extinction event when the leemings, and now us, jump off a cliff. Our moment has come.
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
LaForet wrote:
Dravot wrote:
peanuthead wrote:
Everyone keeps missing the points

1. It is impossible to completely shield all over 60s. Let alone fact that many leading doctors, police, council workers etc are over 60, but over 60s also have to buy food, go to doctor, have plumber in their house to fix leak, be cared for..

2. When enough people are admitted to hospital with covid then cancer surgeries, diagnostic scans etc for people under 60 will be delayed or cancelled due to inadequate capacity and avoidable deaths will occur

So there really is no choice but do what governments have been doing, and hopefully will only last another 6 months if vaccines work


It's considerably more possible to shield, protect and fund the most vulnerable than it is to try to lockdown 67m+ people.

No, it isn't. You really need to listen to what the scientists and medical services are saying. Which is that the 15 million or so people in the UK designated as covid-vulnerable simply can't be isolated in any meaningful way from the rest and the consequences of their being infected can't be stopped from seriously degrading the routine medical services needed for everyone else. Separation is a nice concept. But it's just that, a concept. A wish. Not a reality.

Mathematically, it's "more possible" to lock up the vulnerable. But it's no more practical than locking up the entire population.

What percentage of the above 40 population has one or more co-morbidity? What percentage of over 50 WITHOUT at least one single co-morbidity?

Now,, look around yourself, how many over 50 co-workers you work with? How many over 65 are you in occasional contact? (hint, your doctor, your kid's teacher...) Try removing all of those from your life. You think the economy will be any healthier if only those are all confined to their own home?
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
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Last edited by After all it is free Go on u know u want to! on Thu 31-12-20 12:21; edited 1 time in total
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@susieski, got a link for that, Google throws up nothing.
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abc wrote:
LaForet wrote:
Dravot wrote:
peanuthead wrote:
Everyone keeps missing the points

1. It is impossible to completely shield all over 60s. Let alone fact that many leading doctors, police, council workers etc are over 60, but over 60s also have to buy food, go to doctor, have plumber in their house to fix leak, be cared for..

2. When enough people are admitted to hospital with covid then cancer surgeries, diagnostic scans etc for people under 60 will be delayed or cancelled due to inadequate capacity and avoidable deaths will occur

So there really is no choice but do what governments have been doing, and hopefully will only last another 6 months if vaccines work


It's considerably more possible to shield, protect and fund the most vulnerable than it is to try to lockdown 67m+ people.

No, it isn't. You really need to listen to what the scientists and medical services are saying. Which is that the 15 million or so people in the UK designated as covid-vulnerable simply can't be isolated in any meaningful way from the rest and the consequences of their being infected can't be stopped from seriously degrading the routine medical services needed for everyone else. Separation is a nice concept. But it's just that, a concept. A wish. Not a reality.

Mathematically, it's "more possible" to lock up the vulnerable. But it's no more practical than locking up the entire population.

What percentage of the above 40 population has one or more co-morbidity? What percentage of over 50 WITHOUT at least one single co-morbidity?

Now,, look around yourself, how many over 50 co-workers you work with? How many over 65 are you in occasional contact? (hint, your doctor, your kid's teacher...) Try removing all of those from your life. You think the economy will be any healthier if only those are all confined to their own home?


15m covid vulnerable. How many of those people are not key workers or not in work at all?
Blunt metrics but a simple google search suggests 12m are aged 65+; 6m under 5; a further 3m disabled and unable to work. So thats 21m. I accept that others will be covid vulnerable that are outside of these blunt metrics, but when dealing with huge numbers you need to make broad assumptions.
I maintain my view that its easier to isolate and protect the most vulnerable than it is to half-arsedly shut the country down, a tactic that's clearly having a marginal effect on transmission rates. Largely because most people are paying lip service to the rules knowing that an infection is unlikely to affect them.
Just because something hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't be done.
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susieski wrote:
Brand new mattresses in polythene being shredded in industrial shredders from decommissioned Nightingale hospitals. Nothing so easy as civil servants spending tax payers money. Way too below their pay grade to re allocate them to prisons, homeless hostels etc.


I think hard up key workers and vulnerable families would be higher up my priorities than prisoners. But I take your point. I suspect its an accounting thing - easier to dispose of an assets than to gift them.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
@chocksaway has asked for a link. Has this thread taught us nothing about the perils of rushing to judgement?
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Quote:

I accept that others will be covid vulnerable that are outside of these blunt metrics, but when dealing with huge numbers you need to make broad assumptions.

It's ok to make assumptions, broad or otherwise. But if the assumption is off, a "broad" assumption have "broad" errors (than the narrower ones).
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@pam w, but the post rate would halve if we waited for evidence, we’d have less to argue and speculate about, whilst attributing our pet biases as we go. What sort of internet forum would that be?
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
abc wrote:
Quote:

I accept that others will be covid vulnerable that are outside of these blunt metrics, but when dealing with huge numbers you need to make broad assumptions.

It's ok to make assumptions, broad or otherwise. But if the assumption is off, a "broad" assumption have "broad" errors (than the narrower ones).


It was a broad assumption because I'm not a demographer or economist. The principle remains extant though.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
If you're a skier, you defo don't want incurable plague.

It destroys the lungs, heart, and kidneys.

Around 1% will die.

About 5-10% will get disabled by lung, heart, or kidney damage.

Short Covid = death
Long Covid = disability
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Have any Nightingale hospitals been decommissioned? I thought that some are in use, for various reasons, and most others on standby for possible imminent use. Which immediately makes me think the claim above might be "fake news".
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@ecureuil, +1
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It's probably fake news and definitely totally irrelevant to this thread. No excuse.
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Whitegold wrote:
If you're a skier, you defo don't want incurable plague.

It destroys the lungs, heart, and kidneys.

Around 1% will die.

About 5-10% will get disabled by lung, heart, or kidney damage.

Short Covid = death
Long Covid = disability


I’m closer to 50 than 40. I had covid. I didn’t even know I had it.
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pam w wrote:
It's probably fake news and definitely totally irrelevant to this thread. No excuse.

Another irrational rant...unless she comes up with a verifiable link
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
@Whitegold, sure you don’t want incurable plague.
Coronavirus cold on the other hand, most wouldn’t even know they’d had it. Average age of Covid death in UK is 82, whereas life expectancy is 81. Risk factors for Covid death the same as any cause death. Go figure.
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snowornever wrote:


I admit I had not realised that Switzerland was in the EU, but also admit to sharing your desire not to allow facts to get in the way of a good remainer moan!


I imagine what he was referring to was that U.K. travellers will be subject to similar checks on entering the EU from 1st Jan, not just in Switzerland.

For example it will no longer be possible to take meat or dairy products into the EU and Switzerland as well as a number of other products too
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your imagination may be correct although the way poster worded his comment left the door open to my interpretation to be the obvious conclusion

interesting regulation regarding food products, where was this published?

Not had access to the trade agreement document yet so unable to verify your statement or otherwise

I cannot recall ever being checked at arrival in Switzerland by road or air for contraband Lincolnshire sausages or indeed, any other food product, I assumed because the customs staff have higher priorities.
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@snowornever, surely it was because as we were part of the EU then there were no checks needed as you were entering from another EU country....
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Switzerland is not in fact part of the EU!!!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Although Switzerland is not a member of the European Union it is a full member of the Schengen area.
The Schengen Area ( /ˈʃɛŋən/) is an area comprising 26 European countries that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders.
Sorry should of said Schengen area
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>I imagine what he was referring to was that U.K. ....

Yeeeeeesssssssss. Correct imagination.
And yes nil required when in EU. Most won't really have changed except the rules!!

Food checks go back to pre EEC days. Nothing new for some of us!!
And now been well reported in media. E.g. truckers sandwiches.
Basically, nothing raw. Pre packed e.g. Salami or frozen cooked should be OK. But I think shellfish allowed.
UK milk not allowed because of the TB.
And all the food classes get complicated.!!
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You know it makes sense.
@snowornever, here (about half way down)

https://www.gov.uk/visit-europe-1-january-2021

And here:

https://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/animalproducts/personal_imports_en

In Switzerland it was allowed to bring in these products due to EU trade agreements, albeit in limited quantities for import duty reasons (eg 1kg of meat per person).

As the U.K. is now classed as a 3rd nation country (or whatever the right term is) this goes down to zero, as per the rest of the EU
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Will wait and see what the new agreement states before worrying about that bacon sarny tucked in my backpack!
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Now we've had the Swiss rapid antigen tests and both negative. Q might be ended a day earlier as with other negative tests. Fingers crossed.
It is actually quite nice to just chill after a hectic 10 days or so.
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LaForet wrote:
'there have been 360odd covid related deaths of under 65s who didn't have a pre-existing / underlying health condition since the start of this pandemic. That's just over 1 per day compared to 18 deaths per day from suicide.'

But those 18 suicides don't overwhelm our ICU capacity and stop all elective surgery.

ONS also states there are around 15 million UK citizens with 'pre-existing conditions' who are at serious danger from a covid infection. That's what makes the 'isolate the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with it' idea impractical - 15 million is an impossible proportion of the population to effectively isolate. It's a pipedream.

'the pandemic isn't 'deadly' to the overwhelming majority'

No, just to the 53,135 who died from it. But then, they apparently don't count because they're 'old' or 'have a pre-existing condition'.


Chronic underfunding of the NHS has pushed our ICU capacity to the brink. If they paid nurses more and made it easier to enter the profession, then we would be able to staff the Nightingale hospitals rather than leave them empty. there are beds galore, but no-one to nurse them.

Each of the 53k deaths is a sad event to those involved, but a great deal occurred in the first wave, when the knowledge of how to treat severe cases was low, and were caused by transferring infected patients from hospitals to nursing homes, which shortened the stay of many resident by a few months, then add in those making lifestyle choices of heavy smoking, eating to morbid obesity etc. The truly "unfortunately" vulnerable are quite a small number and possible to shield effectively.

I'd rather not catch covid, and will be in the queue for my vaccine, but it isn't much worse than many strains of flu etc that regularly polish off a few thousand old and vulnerable people every winter and push our NHS capacity to the brink and cause routine operations to be cut.

The impact on peoples lives and the economy of continued lockdown, which is now being ignored by a significant majority so hopelessly ineffective in its aim, is not justified by the risks.
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@colinstone, why do you think your Q will end earlier?
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t4tomo wrote:

I'd rather not catch covid, and will be in the queue for my vaccine, but it isn't much worse than many strains of flu etc that regularly polish off a few thousand old and vulnerable people every winter and push our NHS capacity to the brink and cause routine operations to be cut.


I respect your position on the lockdown, but this idea that Covid isn't much worse than the flu is wrong and I feel it's dangerous.

It's very clear now that Covid is an inflammatory disease affecting small blood vessels, aka a vasculitis. That's why it affects the brain and central nervous system, even though the virus doesn't seem to be able to enter the brain directly. It's also why it affects so many different organs in the body. The damage is not caused directly by the virus, but by the body's own immune response to fight off the virus.

That's very different from the flu, which is a respiratory illness where the damage stays in the lungs, and where there isn't a significant auto-immune component.

People who have "long Covid" tend to be young and healthy, with prolonged vasculitic consequences. They don't die from this illness, but their lives are seriously impacted by disease and disability and some of those impacts may be lifelong.

For people who have had a significant Covid infection with no symptoms, the jury will be out for decades. Unfortunately I think (in a wildly speculative way) that we may see a long term increase in early strokes and heart attacks in that group, due to accumulated small blood vessel damage. But the honest truth is that no one knows because we haven't followed the course of illness for long enough.

On a personal level, I have six friends all 40-50 years old who had a relatively mild form of Covid early in the spring and who continue to suffer from fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and anxiety. All six are healthy, athletic professionals and academics for whom these symptoms are very unusual. The published literature suggests that these lingering effects are more common than anyone thought, and the UK is now at the forefront internationally of collecting and documenting cases like this.

All that said, there is still a sensible way to balance health risks and economic impacts and I don't have a strong view on where that balance should lie. But I do think it's important to remember that (1) this is a new disease that is poorly understood, and (2) it is a lot different and a lot worse than the flu.
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Nadenoodlee wrote:
@colinstone, why do you think your Q will end earlier?


Well, 3 days were allowed for being in France, deemed a safe country??!?, as in the full Swiss quarantine doc:

"In the case of travel quarantine, the ten days commence from the date of your arrival in Switzerland. If you have travelled to Switzerland via a country or area without an increased risk of infection, the responsible cantonal authority can include the duration of your stay in this country or area
in your quarantine period."

France was taken off the increased list by 23 Nov. We spent 3 days in France on our barge for essential battery maintenance, which we reported on arrival.

So email from the Bern contact tracing knocked of 3 days to Monday 2359.
A UK chum here had a day knocked off when he had a negative test result.
So we might get another day off. But happy to wait until the few holiday crowds have gone. I just want my mountain to myself!!
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@colinstone, from
BAG:
A negative test result does not exempt you from the mandatory quarantine requirement or shorten the quarantine period. This is because a negative test result does not rule out an infection with the new coronavirus.
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@diaphon, @colinstone, thank you both for forwarding a clear perspective in this current period. Informed and practical debate is highly valued against all the noise and name calling.
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t4tomo wrote:
...I'd rather not catch covid, and will be in the queue for my vaccine, but it isn't much worse than many strains of flu etc that regularly polish off a few thousand old and vulnerable people every winter and push our NHS capacity to the brink and cause routine operations to be cut....
There may be a similar order of magnitude in the number of Covid deaths this year to flu deaths in a 'normal' year, but that isn't a fair comparison. Flu deaths this winter will be very low, because lockdown/Tier restrictions are drastically reducing the spread, but Covid is continuing to spread even with those restrictions. Under similar conditions, Covid may be 10 x worse than flu - and that is something the NHS couldn't cope with.
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Nadenoodlee wrote:
@colinstone, from
BAG:
A negative test result does not exempt you from the mandatory quarantine requirement or shorten the quarantine period. This is because a negative test result does not rule out an infection with the new coronavirus.


This is getting tedious by armchair warriors, probably in UK.
I am well aware of that. I said that a chum got a 1 day remission after his negative test. I'm interested to see if we get the same??
Clearly Bern contact tracing adjust as they see fit.

I didn't come out here on whim without following the EU situation for several months while planning the options. E.g. not long ago there was no Q coming from UK but 10 days from France. Now the other way round and a reduction for coming from France.
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@Dravot its easier to isolate and protect the most vulnerable than it is to half-arsedly shut the country down

I agree that the Tiering and containment by district doesn't seem to work, especially for the new variant. But the only alternative is to fully lock down.

15 million covid-vulnerable people cannot be isolated to leave everyone else free to mingle as before. Only 12% of groceries can be delivered through online supermarkets according to their trade association. 88% still involve people going into shops. Anyone the subject of care interacts with a carer, and these have been and remain a major vector of transmission. Many of those at risk are in multi-generational households, where it's impossible to isolate. These are just a few example of why the attractive idea of 'isolate and protect the most vulnerable' is impractical.

The 'isolate and protect the most vulnerable' strategy has been compared to gathering all your valuables into one room as a strategy against a house fire. It may work for a while but eventually the fire gets in, And remember we're not talking just about deaths: it's the impact on the NHS - any one of us may need urgent A&E treatment and many people need non-urgent but vital longer-term elective treatments and surgery. And when 'isolate and protect' fails, there's a certain and massive impact on the NHS, and on the economy too.

Once you start looking at who is at risk and who you can practically confine, it underlines the limitations even further. In the NHS, around 44% of the clinical staff are BAME, notably a much higher proportion than in the general population. For non-medical staff, it's about 18%. 42% of NHS clinical staff and 20% of Consultants are over the age of 55. These are all groups that in one way or another are at greater risk of long-term health problems should they contract COVID19. It's hardly practical to take all these people (or even, say a minority of them) into isolation. Carry on with this exercise and you are pretty much left with people in care homes being the only ones you can practically isolate if you really try hard - 418,000 by unofficial estimates, 291,000 at the last census in 2011.

I'm not arguing against being sensible and isolating everyone who can do so as extensively as is practical. It's just that we're already doing that. What I'm arguing against is the idea that if only some (generally other) people were prepared to isolate in some more responsible way, the rest of the population could carry on working as before and we'd be economically pretty OK. It's a nice idea but it will never happen because it's impractical. In a pandemic the only tool to significantly restrain recurrent outbreaks and massive NHS and economic impact, especially as viruses mutate, is a national lockdown. It's not until there is widespread immunisation that outbreaks will reduce and eventually stop.

The UK has dodged the Pandemic/Epidemic bullet 4-5 times in the last 50 years. This is what epidemiologists and the WHO have been warning about. And when Governments in the UK And the USA analysed their preparedness, they felt fairly comfortable they were ready. Unfortunately, such analyses were undertaken by logical scientists, not irrational politicians or public, and in a pre-Web age. So it turns out we actually weren't very well prepared after all. And even now, politicians are pushing out false hope and setting impossible expectations. We'll get through it, but it's cost us a lot lot more than it needed to. And in the process, most people have come to believe that our politicial leaders were ill-suited to the challenge of an opponent who can't be overcome by soundbites, headlines or PR propaganda.


Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads on Thu 31-12-20 15:06; edited 5 times in total
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