AWOL wrote: flu has a nasty annual death toll, most of which could be avoided by vaccines, face masks, and social distancing (....) To understand the risks think beyond deaths to an evolving virus that has the potential to make people seriously ill and cause lasting organ damage.
Colds and flu haven't stopped evolving. You acknowledge yourself that a new variant of flu could result in a serious pandemic.
But we don't wear masks and lock ourselves up to prevent the evolution of the flu.
AWOL wrote:
I wish more people had studied immunology, virology, pharmacology, and genetics at University! Not realistic to expect the general public to all have a couple of bioscience degrees but it would certainly lead to more rational views.
Sometimes people at the coal face need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
Just because the science says you can do something to achieve a particular theoretically 'optimal' outcome, doesn't always mean that it's socially desirable. Take for example the genetics of which you speak. Selectively breeding plants and live stock has been used for eons to improve them. Yet it's widely accepted that we shouldn't apply the same ideas to human reproduction. We don't ban people - even those with proven genetic ailments - from having their own children.
Prior to the 19th July, there seemed to be what can only be described as hysteria from scientists and the media, screaming at the government not to ease restrictions. Warnings of doom that if the government eased restrictions, the virus would spread.
Yet after that date, infections are going down, and not just quietly either, but quite dramatically.
So what does that tell us?
Well, according to the scientists ...
"But we haven't reached "herd" (or "population") immunity - where so many people are immune that the virus struggles to spread.
If that happened, then the growth in cases would be expected to gently slow down, level off, and then case numbers will start to fall.
Instead, reported cases shot up dramatically and then fell equally precipitously. "It's unlikely that herd immunity could lead to that fast a transition," said Prof Donnelly."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57971990
Similarly...
"UK appears to defy dire ‘freedom day’ predictions as Covid cases fall .....
It is still unclear, even to the country’s most esteemed modellers and epidemiologists, what exactly is going on.
The sharpness of the peak suggested that it wasn’t driven by immunity. Levels of immunity differ across the country, and that being the case, different regions would reach their peaks at different times before cases began to fall. The result would be cases plateauing and remaining stable for some weeks before eventually trending downwards."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... cases-fall
I've held off up until now commenting on the drop post-19th July to give time for things to filter through.
I've said all along that I don't believe in compulsion, and mandatory enforcement of behaviour, and would have much preferred the Swedish model where it has largely been left to individual responsibility - albeit with a government fully acknowledging in a dispassionate way the seriousness of covid (distinct from Trump, USA and Bolsanario, Brazil).
Throughout, my arguments have been shot down by the lockdown fanatics insisting that it requires compulsion, and there seemingly being some underlying presumption that people will always push their behaviour to the limits of what they're legally allowed - as though they are unthinking zombies who won't change their behaviour in response to the situation around them. A rather arrogant presumption from the lockdown fanatics that they themselves are better than average, and everyone else needs to be compelled to do exactly what the fanatics demand - backed up by legal sanctions.
Well, it seems that some are starting to accept ...
"“A little more humility in the face of uncertainty would do everyone some good,” said Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University.
“I think that modellers admit themselves that it is not easy to know why this is happening,” one senior government source said. “Certainly the scientific advisors are cautious. I think the change of approach you’ve seen from some of the modellers over the last week shows you how hard this is to predict.”
In Whitehall, one of the theories is that there continues to be sustained public caution, despite the change of enforcement. “People are still generally wearing masks, keeping their distance,” one adviser said. “That means you still see the effects of that caution. People know now what the behaviours are that will protect them and those appear to be still being used.” "
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... cases-fall
Which is rather backing up the point I've made all along, that we didn't need to resort to legal restrictions.
Managing covid, has always been a game of statistics. We should have allowed people more flexibility to play their part as best they can, rather than being forced. People should have been able to make their own judgements as to whether to visit relatives on their death beds, etc.
imv, the drop starting at or around the 19th July has come about because this time the message is that it's different. This time Boris made it clear he intends it to be the last. He even went ahead with it, even when the numbers were rising.
And this, in my view, has resulted in a transfer of responsibility. Before, people have just played the part of passengers, just doing what they were told, because, well, they had not choice... it was mandated in law and the police would deal with you if you tried to exercise your own judgement.
Up until this point, people had relinquished responsibility quite simply because the government had unilaterally assumed responsibility and hadn't given people a choice. So people effectively shrugged their shoulders, presumed the government was 'following the science' and stayed at home as instructed, or ate out to help out, as per the government's edicts at the time.
But now people see it differently. With Boris opening up with cases still rising, and scientists and the media screaming about 100's of thousands of cases, etc, people have now assumed responsibility themselves, even at the same time the legal requirements have been relaxed.
And what have we seen so far?
Well, when under legal restrictions, cases were rising; now restrictions have eased cases have fallen far more sharply than pretty much any of the virologists, epidemiologists, etc, have predicted.
It seems to me, that the when responsibility is meaningfully shifted onto the people, away from the government, and people recognise that, that in actual fact, when people are able to voluntarily adapt their behaviour as they choose, rather than being forced... it's actually resulted in significantly better infection control overall so far.
I really do believe that throughout this pandemic, the government and the scientists really should have had more faith in the general public.
Scientists would have been better, instead of directing their voice towards the government, and telling the government how to dictate to people how they must behave...
... all along it would have been better if both the scientists and the government had treated the population as adults, and given the public all the available information, and let each individual adapt their behaviour as best as they are able, without resorting to legal compulsion.
Tentatively, I believe the otherwise seemingly paradoxical drop in cases after restrictions were relaxed, would seem to provide emerging evidence to back up this point of view.
The latest facts, on the face of it, certainly do
not seem to back up the claims that legal compulsion was necessary to control the virus.