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Will there be another lockdown colorado12/11/2023 ![]() ![]() Nor are they a trivial restriction on freedom, as the Zero Covidians claim. With a highly infectious virus and a “leaky” vaccine, they are too lightweight to bring about the lockdown-style collapse in case numbers that its advocates desire. That’s the thing about the measures in Plan B. It is certainly difficult to imagine either mandatory masks or vaccine passports turning a rising tide of cases into a decline (although they would doubtless be getting the credit for the recent drop in the infection rate had they been introduced two weeks ago). You pays your money and takes your choice, but it is difficult to point to a clear impact from mandatory mask laws on the overall infection rate in the UK or any other country. If you prefer cherry-picking in the opposite direction you might note that masks are also mandatory in Scotland where the rate is only one in 75. In Wales, where masks remain mandatory, one in 40 people have it. ![]() In England, one in 50 people have Covid-19. Despite doing much less testing, the European Union has recorded more Covid deaths than the UK (per capita) for the last two weeks, and the gap is widening. Case numbers are soaring in most of Eastern Europe, where vaccine uptake has been poor. Since the start of last month the number of cases has almost doubled in Ireland and Greece, more than doubled in Austria and Belgium, and quadrupled in the Netherlands. In the last fortnight, however, new cases in Germany have doubled and are now close to January's levels. Only surgical or FFP2 medical grade masks are permitted.”) “Germany is managing to control its Covid epidemic and bring down the numbers of cases”, wrote Devi Sridhar in the Guardian as she applauded the country’s cancelling of Oktoberfest, its vast number of testing centres (“literally at every corner”) and its mask mandates (“not cloth masks. Two weeks ago, when the clamour for Plan B was at its zenith, Europe was held up as an example of what could be achieved with “modest” restrictions. ![]() The case is not particularly strong for either. Those who support vaccine passports and mandatory masks should argue for them on their own terms rather than threaten us with implausible lockdowns if we don’t adopt them. We need to get away from the 2020 mentality of assuming that a rise in cases will continue inexorably, just as we should not expect a fall in cases to continue for weeks on end, as previous declines did under lockdown. The phrase “if current trends continue” is a red flag in economic forecasting and should be treated with the same scepticism in Covid modelling. The logic of exponential growth served modellers well last year, but immunity delivered by vaccines and infection have made mathematical formulas redundant. If the summer and autumn surges help to “flatten the curve” over winter, we may look back on them as a blessing in disguise. The logical conclusion to be drawn from Whitty’s motto is that we no longer have an epidemic – rather, we have an endemic virus that everybody will catch sooner or later, possibly more than once. Rates have gone up and down in defiance of Sage's projections, for reasons that nobody fully understands. Since July, Covid in the UK has done neither. Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, is fond of saying that epidemics are either doubling or halving. It is true that if the recent rise in hospitalisations continues throughout the winter, Covid will put the NHS under intolerable pressure. We cannot make a habit of staying home to protect the NHS. It is almost certain that the NHS will be in crisis this winter, as it is every year, but it will not be the public’s fault. A quarter of these people are not even being primarily treated for Covid-19 and there are fewer people with Covid in mechanical ventilation beds than there were at the end of August. One answer is hospital capacity, but while the number of people with Covid in English hospitals has risen from around 5,000 at the end of July to 7,000 today, it is a far cry from the 14,000 last November, let alone the peak of 34,000 recorded in January. If the government didn’t go to Plan B in July, why should it go there now? Moreover, the number of new cases is lower than it was on Freedom Day. This didn’t happen without lockdowns last year. “Waiting and watching just doesn’t work with Covid,” she says, “as we have learned repeatedly over the past 22 months.” But are the last ten months really comparable with the 12 before them? Cases are falling in England and this is the fifth time they have been on a downward trajectory since “Freedom Day” in July. Science and Technical Research and Development.Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities.Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives.Information and Communications Technology.HR, Training and Organisational Development.Health - Medical and Nursing Management. ![]() Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance. ![]()
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