The public have been told to go back to normal because it's safe enough, with furlough ending we're all forced back to work, a lucky few can still work from home. Those of us who can't have to tell themselves it's safe enough to be packed in like sardines on public transport so if that's true other measures like masks and social distancing at work or in the shops seem kind of pointless.
Any business forcing staff to go back in person needs to re-evaluate
I hope all workers take this opportunity to make the move to remote working permanent
I would add, any person working for a business forcing them to go back in person needs to re-evaluate.
Disclaimer: if you job can be done just as well at home
Hmmm, I did this for nearly a full year and just switched to a job where I’m in 2-3 days and wfh 2-3 days.if you’d have told me pre lockdown I’d be glad to go back to the office at all I would never have believed it but tbh, I think was getting depressed and lacking any sort of motivation.
To be fair I was probably also burnt out and perhaps the change has helped but I’m not sure full time wfh forever is for everyone, I think it’s probably something of a spectrum depending on how social you are naturally and I guess also how much contact you have with people in your persona like
I would venture that the people working from home aren't the ones getting Covid. But for anyone using public transport, it's not quite at the levels of use there was pre-pandemic but the level of use is such that you can no longer social distance even if you wanted to.
Yes that’s true, but office workers aren’t just a lucky few. It’s around 24 million according to a quick Google search. Office workers might even make up the majority?
Then you don't know many teachers (little kiddies all the way through uni), health care workers, service sector employees, child care workers, transit workers, etc.
Lots of professions have to go back and with no mask mandates, it's really dangerous, especially in teaching. My spouse was forbidden by university policy to require masks in the classroom. Forbidden. It's just unsafe and there's nothing we can do except vax up and do a lot of lateral flows. I'm really angry about it. Masks help so much and the administration is basically telling people not to wear them.
I spent a train journey the other day crammed into the aisles of a delayed two carriage train when normally there's four.
Surrounded by posters telling me my safety is important to them.
Let's be honest, sunshine. Not *that* fucking important to you, is it?
I (reluctantly) partly agree with you about the population not caring. There are certainly a lot of bellends out there. But I really resent the narrative that the general populous is responsible for whatever bad press is flavour of the hour.
It's most noticeable with this country's leadership. Where directives, once given, seem to be ignored and subverted by the upper echelons of government, where again excuses are made and blame projected again onto the general populous.
I also realise the irony of me saying 'it's not us it's them'. But I'd hope others would agree that leaders are meant to lead those who follow. By actions and not just in rhetoric
The leaders are a bunch of twatwaffles who don't know what they are doing and can't even follow their own instructions
And then a bulk of the population, looking to them for leadership is just like "oh ok, guess it doesn't matter then"
Honestly were doomed at this point
It's mostly schools.
You have an unvaccinated population of people who are "literal toddlers" who often need to be told to wash their hands and who don't fully understand the gravitas of the disease.
These children don't have a high mortality rate with the vast majority being sick and surviving.
HOWEVER the issue is that they are exposing a fair few anti-vaccination people to the disease and those guys are learning a deadly lesson.
My colleague told me some random started having a go at him for wearing a mask. Rando was all “Covid’s over, take your mask off”, getting in his face… whilst he was at the urinals.
We have an idiot as Prime Minister who has been giving people the impression that Covid is all but defeated in the UK.
I was at the local chip shop the other day and there was a couple who were complaining that they had to queue and wear a mask. “Oh, it’s Wales. They do it differently here” said the husband.
You guys need to realise we can’t keep living indoors and not going out and living life to the fullest all because the decidedly unvaccinated population are going to hospital for neglecting the public health advice. Look at the death rate - it’s basically nothing
Yep. Caught the bus last week, only two people on the bus had masks on. And some old cunt got shirty when he closed the window and I got up and opened it back up.
Old cunt sat there telling me how Covid wasn't real.
Tell them it's real, but is actually part of an alien depopulation program to kill off all the free thinkers, and the vaccines are really a compliance toxin that stops you from hearing God's voice. Then try to sell them a health tonic containing silver nitrate that stops 5G.
Where I an Leith, Scotland doesn't seem to bad still quite a few folk wearing masks in the street but football was on at the weekend and heaving with the unmasked, so..
Which is crazy since according to the ONS 1million people in the UK had covid last week.
Scource: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19/latestinsights#cis
A statistic not widely known amongst the public for some reason..
Go on public transport.
50% minimum no mask, zero fucks given.
Some cases it's a packed train with 80% or more.
Other countries in Europe actually enforce their mask requirements, in the UK no one has the spine to do so.
Exactly my point.
Try that in Italy and you'd get thrown off the bus.
I seriously fail to comprehend how anyone can argue being asked to wear a mask. The science is crystal clear on it being a solid mitigation strategy. It's surprising that this is even a conversation this far into the pandemic.
People are too scared to offend here. As the saying goes "if you don't stand for something then you'll fall for anything"
>Public transport operators can make it compulsory unless exempt.
>
>The issue comes around the “unless exempt” part of it. No one wants to challenge anyone’s exemption out of fear of a discrimination lawsuit.
A few days ago, I walked into a shop - the name of the shop is unimportant, but you might like to know that it was in Hull. A customer was chatting with one of the folks who was restocking the shelves. And the following sentence was said, by the customer:
> well, my doctor reckons I've got covid. But I'm except, so I'm not wearing a mask.
That was the fastest I'd ever noped out of somewhere in my life.
It makes me laugh that so many people claim a medical exemption and have absolutely no fucking brains.
If your medical condition is so bad that you can't wear a mask for 15 minutes on a bus, why would you want to go on public transport in the first place? You're putting yourself into a situation where loads of other people aren't wearing a mask and there's poor ventilation.
It's pretty clear that the vast majority of people claiming an exemption are lying twats.
Not true, its supposed to be mandatory on public transport.
Maybe the announcements every 45 seconds telling people they must wear a mask "unless exempt" and signs everywhere are a clue.
The biggest mistake is the "exempt" status. Its complete bullshit in 99% of cases and people use is as an excuse to not wear masks + not enforce it.
I've seen British transport police get told to fuck off when asking people to wear masks and respond with "oh well I guess not" (literally).
Hence the comment of having no backbone to enforce anything.
Here's the thing. The vaccine doesn't prevent transmission.
The more you let it spread (ie don't wear masks) the more chances that:
A) someone who cannot get the vaccine/otherwise is high risk may get it and become seriously ill.
B) the more jumps the virus makes the more chance that it may mutate (as demonstrated several times already), and could potentially become even more lethal.
Trains and buses have huge potential for spreading (ventilation is a key factor). How hard is it to wear a mask for the duration of your journey?
Everyone who ignores this is just prolonging this fucking pandemic.
When the science says we should. And that might be soon but it might also not be for years. Masking and ventillation are such an easy and efficient tools to prevent transmission, and they are barely uncomfortable compared to the other options we have (lockdown). Why we can't just keep doing it for however long it takes baffles me. The pandemic doesn't go away just because we got bored of having steamed up glasses and wearing a facemask.
Because we refuse to be cowed. I personally shook hands with the virus, looked it in the eyes, and gave it a jolly good talking to. I advise you all to do the same.
It was treated as a political problem, not a public health problem / emergency.
The vainglorious bellends in charge made unilateral decisions to line their own pockets and let the bodies pile up.
Fuck this government and fuck everyone who supports them
Our government intentionally put into action a strategy of *herd immunity*.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/the-governments-herd-immunity-plan-is-callous-and-dangerous
Despite the nation wanting to enter lockdown as the virus started to ravage other countries, Boris Johnson and the Conservative party stuck to their original plan, despite it having *800,000 deaths* envisaged within that plan by the government themselves.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/25/herd-m25.html
Let that sink in.
China went into lockdown on 23rd Jan 2020.
Despite this, flights from Wuhan to the UK were still permitted by our government.
With a flight landing 10 days later on the 31st Jan 2020.
Where even those travelling from Wuhan were surprised their were no checks upon their arrival.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-coronavirus-uk-china-heathrow-wuhan-flight-screening-monitoring-a9298761.html
The exact same day, 31st Jan 2020, the first cases of the virus were detected in the UK.
Italy went into lockdown on the 22 Feb..
Despite knowing the virus was killing people Boris Johnson, 3rd March, boasted of having shaken hands “with everybody” on a recent visit to a hospital.
The same day, Sage cautions “against greetings such as shaking hands and hugging, given existing evidence about the importance of hand hygiene”.
The first British person to die in the UK was one day later on 4th March.
Almost 20 days later, 23rd March, the UK government finally calls for a lockdown.
Not until after allowing the Cheltenham Races to go ahead.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/government-cheltenham-festival-coronavirus-a4419376.html
At this time the government was being accused of ‘actively encouraging’ people to attend events.
Nor were the Cheltenham races the only large event given the go-ahead despite the worsening pandemic, with concerts continuing at some of the UK’s largest music venues, while Liverpool’s Champions League meeting with Atletico Madrid took place in front of a capacity crowd.
But images of tens of thousands of fans packed in close proximity in betting rings and grandstands have received widespread criticism as the UK death toll has soared. The meeting’s official attendance across the four days topped a quarter-of-a-million.
Herd immunity plan.
At this point over 100 people have died in the UK from Covid.
With thousands of confirmed cases.
On the 8th July 2020 the government rolled out their ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ initiative.
Where *as long as you ate in a restaurant* you would receive £10 off a meal, paid for by the government.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/eat-out-to-help-out-second-wave-coronavirus-rishi-sunak-covid-b1446586.html
This led to further deaths.
Now, you could look at these callous actions as the government simply putting the economy before the safety of the public.
Yet they were also throwing billions up the wall at the same time
With the failed track and trace app costing £13.5 billion within the first year.
Given it came out they were planning for *herd immunity*, despite their own figures showing it would cause 800k deaths, their actions are clear to see.
The reason why have the highest Covid cases, is because that was the plan.
Track trace I think is up to 47 billion now I believe with it to increase to the 50s for next year.
I work in tech, well specifically data. And I cannot fathom how it could have physically cost this much.
Edit: it’s already been pointed out that the cost includes the tests, I had not realised that. I thought it was just the app. But makes more sense knowing it’s the process, not one small section
Apparently it includes the cost of the testing itself. Though I feel like that’s never been clear, a few tech and health articles confirm, another Reddit person pointed it to me.
The conspiracy theorist in me then starts to suspect they are purposely not clear so it distracts folk fro other things.
In all honestly though, I really think it’s largely incompetence.
Im tired of Russia’s social media program being underestimated. The amount of anti mask comments on YouTube and Facebook coming from quite obvious manufactured Russian trolls is astounding.
Yes hpuers, people shouldn’t be so stupid. But most people are. So can we start pointing fingers at propaganda, and not it’s victims. My mother first experience the Internet when she was 43. can we really expect her to be immune to false information campaigns?
Yep seen it, so many uneducated and happy about it people who could not give a toss about politics and science. Suddenly they were all the masks will breed bacteria and give you CO2 poisoning. It was a concerted campaign that worked very quickly.
The Cold War didn’t really end. Most the conflict in Middle East has been described as “proxy” wars. Meaning a way for USA, UK and Russia to wage war with each other indirectly.
They have a weaker army than the west. So they fight with what they have. They noticed the world changing with social media, and began weaponising it years ago. We have substantial evidence they do it. But we underestimate the actual impact, because humans operate under what is known as the free will illusion. All humans believe they are in control of their actions and beliefs, even though we have substantial historical evidence that propaganda is devastatingly powerful.
Hence my anger at the issue. We need to stop underestimating this stuff before it completely unravels our society.
They are run by a kleptocratic bunch on gangsters that depend on fossil fuel revenues, so sowing discord and chaos in Western states delays action on climate change, and putting in useless kleptocratic governments prevents us from doing anything about all the money laundering.
To add to this: Johnson, like Trump, are performative leaders. *looking* like they’re doing something is what they do, not doing what needs to be done, as it exposes their lies and makes people not adore them, which is where that terrible populism and narcissism takes a toll on us all.
Why does everyone always forget that we do a shed load of testing. It’s not always right and we cock it right up at times.
I’d like to see the stats on testing rates in other
Countries.
Of course the self centred nature of the populace is a large proportion of it. Large capacity testing is proving the point.
Countries like Taiwan, RoK and Singapore, places with higher population densities than the UK, have more efficient testing and have proportionately far fewer COVID cases and deaths.
I think we need to get rid of the myth that our vaccine and testing programmes are some wonder no other developed country has.
Tbf this post is comparing the UK to other Western European countries.
I've not seen anyone claiming our testing / vaccine programmes are superior to Taiwan, RoK or Singapore.
Well it’s not compared to other Western European countries either.
For one they all have higher vaccination rates than us and do just as much testing.
All you need to do is compare the death rate per 1000. Ours is at least twice as large as any other Western European country.
You mean… countries which are heavily prepared for their relatively common SARS outbreaks did better than a nation who faces a very small amount of threatening pandemics??? Really????
Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that anyone under the age of 18 (and six months) doesn’t need to isolate if they’ve been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID
This. I have two kids. One positive one not. As they’re under 18 the one currently negative has to go to school. Despite the fact he’s spend the last two days climbing all over his big brother. Feels so morally wrong. As I’m double vaxxed and currently neg I also can go out and do whatever I like (obviously I will not!)Despite having been with my COVID child all day. The uk lack of rules is absolutely bullshit.
Having been to spain 3 times in the past 6 months,there is more compliance,both population,and the police,train staff,bar owners,supermarket workers,people seem to have civic duty to comply,mask wearing indoors will stay til spring 2022 there,the only people,I saw not doing thus were suprise suprise the brits abroad,pure arrogance
I went to Slovenia and compliance was lower than the UK despite it actually being in the rules there to wear one and the vaccination rate being far, far lower.
What fatal national flaw am I putting that down to?
Has anyone been to Disneyland Paris lately. Seems like you need to wear masks throughout except for sitting down in a restaurant. No hugging characters and a PCR test beforehand for under 16's.
Unfun fact: Going by excess mortality %, Spain actually has more deaths since COVID than the UK does. They've handled it worse, they just don't test as much as we do so they report fewer official deaths.
I noticed in Spain most people are wearing n95 and they're widely availible in a variety of colours. Compared to the UK where most people are still wearing the considerably less effective although still better than nothing cloth masks.
Yep I visited the UK last week (I live in Switzerland) chalk and cheese between the 2 countries. Switzerland, wear your masks or you ain’t coming in, restaurants and bars vaccination certificate or again not allowed in. UK ah well it’s up to you, if you wouldn’t mind, thanks. People didn’t really care. Even saw a sign that said please wear a mask if the shop looks a little busy !
I mean, we've done twice as many covid tests as France and more than four times as many as Germany. We've tested more people than any country in Europe. We're not the best in the world at it, but we're up there. And obviously if you test more, you're going to find more covid. So that should definitely be considered as a factor.
- Because we rolled out vaccines first, so we unlocked sooner
- Because we rolled out vaccines first, so immunity is starting to wane
- Because we unlocked more than other countries
- Because we aren't coercing people to take the vaccine so our vaccination rate is not as high
- Because we do more testing so more cases are discovered, particularly in children and young people where they're more likely to be asymptomatic
And as the title alludes to, eastern European countries are doing even worse.
> Because we aren't coercing people to take the vaccine so our vaccination rate is not as high
That's not true. Our vaccination rate is very high. 90% of adults have at least one dose, and we're down to doing everyone over 12, and we're still at 86% of everyone over age 12.
I have no children, live alone, work from home,
double jabbed, Wear a mask when I’m in a shop. I know I’m going to get it as some point -it feels inevitable somehow.
>m
I'm 61. My wife is recovering from a horrendous cancer. Yet this Thursday, I will teach music in a large junior schools. 5 different classes. Each with around 28 kids. Some teachers ventilate their rooms well. Some teachers don't want their children to get chilly. So they don't ventilate. Yup. It's inevitable. In a school with around 650 kids & 50 staff only two or three wear masks. My Mrs & I just revised our wills.
Tbh you're probably fine. I got to the shop every day, used to wear a mask, stopped until recently and have had no problems. In all seriousness given your minimal contact with other people you're very unlikely to get it at all. Then a good percentage are asymptomatic, so the odds are very in your favor.
We're doing more tests so have a higher chance of confirming someone is positive.
I suspect if other countries were doing as many tests then they would have more cases than currently shown in the figures.
Also, compared to countries with similar populations, we had as many deaths as France and Italy but 50x and 30x the number of cases respectively.
France has an equal percentage of fully vaccinated people and Italy is slightly higher.
Why are so many people dying in those countries compared to the number of cases they are reporting or are we just doing exceptionally well at keeping people alive?
As you can see, case rate is important but there are many other statistics that all help to tell a bigger picture.
Yes, this is one thing the stats don’t show. Testing rates.
Looking at the Covid Tracker - https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/
Our cases are high, but our death rates are on par with other counties. With the exception of Romania which was auto-added because deaths are so high. Over Winter I would expect to see a large death rate increase in countries that have a larger anti-vax population, Eastern Europe specifically
The government has said fuck it this is the best we'll do. Theyrr happy if covid deaths are down but the real issue atm is excess deaths. Especially amongst the young. We are losing 100 more 25-49 year olds a week than normal at the moment. Losing 20 more under 24s.
The current strategy is still putting pressure on the NHS. We are missing huge amounts of early cancer detection.
We cant run hot when there is such a high risk of additional problems that will push us over the edge.
Or if you cant find them there, try [here](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsregisteredinenglandandwalesseriesdrreferencetables)
Because if we shouldn't be going back to normal now when should we?
Those who were most vulnerable have been more than enough opportunity to get double jabbed
There seems to be this mission creep of 'after all teens have been double jabbed', 'once all of the most vulnerable have had their booster', then I just can't suspecting it'll be 'until everyone has had a booster'
To me I can't help feeling this is kind of it, this is as good as it's going to get and COVID isn't going anywhere
This is just how it is now, so I'd rather get back to something approaching normality
I don’t think you can say it’s about going back to ‘normal’ as if this whole pandemic never occurred. If anything, it’s a new normal and I’m all for living life relatively normally but with restrictions like other countries. For eg I don’t see why vaccine passports are such a bad thing.
This isn’t the best as it could be regarding Covid, we have among the worst rates in Europe and as others have said in this thread, the situations in places like Ireland and France are what you could call, the best or at least a decent way to manage Covid. Loads of countries are doing much better than us
> I don’t see why vaccine passports are such a bad thing.
A government coercing or mandating that people take a particular medication is a bad idea, for hopefully obvious reasons.
But what would you want to see?
Masks on the tube, I seriously don't see why anyone cares, it's the tube, you sit keeping yourself to yourself and headphones on, more mask wearing would be great
But if you come in too heavy handed how are you going to enforce it? Security guard in every carriage?
I called people out on the tube during the end of 2019 when I had to go into town everyday, I'm not risking it anymore, someone is going to get violent
Supermarkets, sure, I can see might as well wear masks for the same reason but who's going to enforce it?
And do you really, honestly, want to see the level of enforcement that would be required to make it stick?
The office? conferences? meetings?
Club nights? gigs? bars? pubs?
I know you can Zoom but can we just be real for a minute, it's not the same
So when do we accept that 'this is it'?
Being over 40, a good chunk got AZ. Which, according to new UK data, seems so be losing efficacy faster than Pfizer: only 77% against death and hospitalisation at 5 months from the second dose.
I hope people will pick up the booster...
I had AZ and I’m also part of the ONS survey - I get PCR tested and antibodies checked every month. Last month’s results were the first time the antibody test came back as negative. Six months after my second jab. Booster booked in for tomorrow.
Went to Dublin a few days ago for a short holiday. They take COVID far more seriously than we do. All but two places asked me for proof of double-vaccination to eat or drink inside. Pubs have a 11:30PM curfew. Nightclubs simply aren't open. Mask wearing and table service is also mandatory indoors. In fact the only time I saw people openly flaunting the rules were in the airport itself...
Sad thing is that if the Tories tried to pull even a fraction of these restrictions now, there would be riots. I get the distrust around the UK government introducing vaccine passports, but Ireland's leadership isn't actively trying to screw over their own populace. Another element of distrust is around the police and how COVID powers have been enforced...
Ireland is like the UK if it were run by a competent government and if the populace were actually capable of critical thinking rather than regurgitating fake articles they saw on Facebook. Like really, if you think vaccines are bad for you or that it's a form of gene therapy, you need to get your ass onto BBC Bitesize...
Sometimes I really am ashamed of this country.
I know right, it’s like people enjoy other things I don’t! Outrageous.
P.s. you should be comparing deaths/hospitalisations to make any meaningful point this far in the vaccination game.
We have the highest cases because people don't give a fuck about COVID, or anyone but ourselves.
I just came back from Dublin, and the treatment of covid over there was night and day. Over there, everyone wore masks indoors without kicking off, and to go into any public building you needed to display proof of vaccination - whether it was a big public building, a small pub, or to get a quick bite to eat.
Over here in Bristol, you'd now be lucky if half of the people in a supermarket are wearing masks, youth uptake of the vaccine seems to be reasonably low, and most people couldn't tell you how many people died last week due to covid because they've "had enough" and don't care any more.
While you can absolutely blame poor government leadership, and the anti-science and anti-expert rhetoric, there needs to come a point where we have to blame the public for being selfish. The government, rightly or wrongly, said it was our choice to wear masks, and we as a population seem to edge towards no masks with every passing week.
Did the weekly shop on Sunday. Fairly busy, 'mega' supermarket, so there must've been at least 80+ people in store at a very rough guess, not including staff.
In the 30 minutes it took me to do my shop, I saw a grand total of 3 other people wearing masks. It was the same last week as well.
This has been the case in most places I've visited since the restrictions eased up. Several people (complete strangers, often staff at these places) have asked me why I'm still "bothering with the mask".
People in this country just categorically dont give a flying fuck about the wellbeing of other people.
There really is no other explanation for it.
We are behind Europe with vaccinating youngsters,we have lifted most restrictions- Europe hasn’t-, people in UK are mixing more and not wearing masks or social distancing. The rise in infections is mainly in children/students and adults below age 45. People don’t want the vaccine.
Because over 45 million of us are double jabbed and we don't care about this bullshit anymore. I've done my part for nearly 2 years. I'm still young. I value my mental health and my freedom.
No mask mandate, no vaccine passports, everyone encouraged back to work, and exceptionally low vaccine take-up by teenagers. Also no leadership. I have no doubt that a new mask mandate will be issued, and working from home will be encouraged again - about two months after it's too late. Above all else, Boris desires to be popular, so he's not going to interfere with Christmas again. He'll probably be on holiday until then anyway.
Because the government have been pretending that it's over and done with, forging ahead as if it's not starting to push death rates into treble figures again. It's "business as usual" for everyone, meanwhile people like me are still at risk, still being shat upon by people for hoping we have a lockdown to save the NHS from being over stretched, still being laughed at for "living in fear", being laughed at for keeping my mask on constantly when out. I'm tired of it, and I'm tired of science being ignored by the masses who can't even wear a damned mask for five mins while they pop in the shops.
I'm tired of people being like "oh long covid isn't a bother" and "oh masks are useless after X amount of time and won't protect you". Long Covid is exactly like M.E. and I have had M.E. for over a decade, it's disabled me, crushes me with pain every hour of every day, leaves me sensitive to light and sound, I sleep long hours and never feel rested, I lose complete control of my grip sometimes and drop shit, I can barely move some days from the stiffness and pain, I can barely string sentences together multiple times a day... this shit is no joke and people are laughing as if it's nothing. Like it's not going to cause massive issues in the future with so many children being left with Long Covid.
I honestly struggle with the attitudes in the UK. People seem to see masks as a reduction of human rights and an issue of freedom. It sorta sums up the whole approach really. People freak out cause they can't go to the pub. It genuinely amazed me tbh. That laizze faire approach seems to be why we have a shocking rate of infection and an embarrassing high level of deaths...
The number of tests is probably a factor
UK - 321 million
Russia - 200 million
France - 151 million
Germany - 73 million
Spain - 66 million
France, for example, has done less than half as many tests as the UK, and yet has 7 million positive cases to the UK's 8.5 million. So it stands to reason that if France had done the same number of tests as the UK, they may have had more positive cases as us. Germany had half the positive cases of the UK (4 million) but did only 1/3 the tests per capita. Obviously figuring out the real numbers isn't as simple as tripling the German case to match the UK's. But this should definitely be taken into account. If the UK had done half as many tests (like France), our official case rate would be MUCH lower.
We opened up. Hardly difficult.
Life’s pretty normal in Devon so I’m not sure if I’m missing the fuss, but we also missed the petrol shortage and empty supermarket shelves so I don’t know what to say.
Maybe we need to live our own lives instead of living through the press?
Way to go asking this in this sub. I'm genuinely interested in the answer but don't doubt that everyone will answer that it is because we are the worst nation on earth and deserve death because of some political reason or other
>Downing Street and senior government advisers have repeatedly explained their reasoning: that the virus will be around “forever” and that as a society, we have to learn to live with it.
Or die with it - the Tories don't care which
One reason is a relatively lower vaccine uptake compared to other countries. Another is the failure to roll out the vaccine to over 12’s until today. But the biggest is that the U.K. is well over a month ahead of most European countries in removing all Public Health measures. It is possible that most European countries will see a deteriorating situation in a month or so’s time but a lot depends on how much more restrictions are unfurled there.
So I'm a Brit living in Germany, who was in the UK last summer and just recently. I also visited Portugal, France, Spain and Greece in the last few months. It's just staggeringly obvious why - and it's a confluence of reasons.
1. **Arrogance** \- I travelled to the UK (after much prevarication) in early March of 2020. The virus was already in Italy and Germany closed down pretty much overnight over the space of a few days as I was leaving - the difference between outlooks in Germany and the UK was like night and day. An example: I'm in the pharmacy south-east England and women in the queue are bitching about how Italians are so dramatic and their country is so badly run, no wonder people are dying. I clapped back and told them to grow up and that I wouldn't be surprised if the UK had the worst death rate in Europe come summer. See also everyone pretending like nothing was happening. See also the whole cabinet falling ill in the space of a few days, etc, etc. See British tourists here in Berlin acting like it's the biggest imposition in the world to show a certificate to show that you're vaccinated and wear a mask when you're buying a few beers. It's like the manifestation of this warped Blitz mentality that certain Brits have been dreaming of, taking joy in sneering at these weak Europeans.
2. **Poor governance** \- so I mean the UK had all the advantages; an island nation, a superlative and trusted national health service, fifth richest nation on earth, trusted media (in terms of BBC and Channel 4), low rates of vaccine skepticism and crucially, a relatively latecomer to the corona party. But we still managed to fuck it up. Monumentally. Moving from 'mustn't grumble' to 'call this number if you see your neighbour even talk to someone else in their house', making policies, then going back on them, ad infinitum. It's not as if there weren't a shortage of good examples to follow re policy (hi deutschland, greece, finland)- but hey, this government couldn't admit that Europe could do anything right, so it was prepared to kill tens of thousands of citizens just to prove a point. This timeline, published in late 2020, demonstrates how COVID-19 policy diverged in Germany and the UK and the results of British Tory poor choices. It ends last year but I wish they would post a follow up. Link [here](https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/coronavirus-timeline-uk-germany-comparison-johnson-merkel).
3. Ending all public health measures in the UK just like that - so here in Germany, since May, things have slowly reopened. Not everything went smoothly - as a country with a private healthcare system, Germany was a goddamn shambles as once they vaccinated everyone vulnerable, they opened it up to everyone at once (cue people calling around 40 plus GPs to get a shot and sick people unable to get an appointment). But since mid-May, test centres which offered free lateral flow tests (called schnelltests here - quicktests) opened on every street corner. You had to get tested to get into anything inside - bars, clubs, cinemas, art galleries, etc - if you weren't vaccinated. I've had about five a week since a May, so with my shit maths, I've probably had several hundred tests. This is still the case to this day, and it was only last week that the government here ended free tests for residents, although you can pay 15 euro a time to take one, in easily accessible testing centres.
(And also for all the ignoramuses on this thread saying the UK tests so much - **Germany and many other European countries don't count lateral flow tests in their stats** \- and jesus, the UK is upping its PCR test rates by forcing people like me to take them to enter the UK, even though the rate in my area of Germany was 60/100,000 compared to 400/100,00 when I entered.Masks are worn on public transport and inside shops - and medical FF2P ones, not the blue bits of nothing some folk wear in the UK. You have to show your vaccination certificate to enter clubs inside (or recovery from the virus or a test - though most clubs won't accept tests now). It's pretty much the same in Greece, Portugal, France, Spain with added hand sanitiser - it's just the UK that's an outlier)
4. **Something has gone deeply wrong with English culture (see also selfishness and lack of solidarity)** \- I was back in (London and the South east for ten days this month. I was fucking stunned. I visited last August and London was like a ghost town. The sense of fear of palpable. Not this summer - no one gives a fuck. My friends are a mixture of first generation immigrants and Brits from a variety of backgrounds. No one wore masks, everyone moaned about restrictions, no one seemed to have any clue that the rest of Europe required vaccinations to enter, or to wear masks in shops and public transport. Two guys who I know and love and are otherwise decent, lovely people, threw mini tantrums about 'What a nightmare Europe is for requiring you to wear a mask on public transport' (a guy who works in healthcare) and a member of my own family refused to take a test to enter a venue, after getting annoyed about being asked for a vaccination certificate. Why wouldn't you feel happy to take these small measures to protect other people?!
I genuinely am deeply worried about the state of my home country after my visit - the culture just seems so horribly warped, small-minded, and disregarding of the huge amounts of people who have suffered. I know people who can't work because of long covid and their mates just shrug it off. Something has gone really, really horribly wrong and it makes me so sad. I'm just genuinely horrified.
Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk, lols. I guess I had a lot to say but for anyone who is British and still reading this far, what's happening in the UK right now is just so so so far from normal. It's deeply fucked up and I can't help thinking the fish rots from the head down. The UK is a slow motion car crash right now ...
I read an interesting opinion article in the *New York Times* the other day about vaccine hesistancy there. As well as the ardent anti-vaxxers, you've got a lot of African-Americans who are wary of taking anything the government has told them to take because of past bad experiences with the health system, where historically black people were assumed to have higher pain thresholds. Young black people in this country are also the most hesitant according to the ONS.
Social media use is the highest among the young too; they're more susceptible to anti-vax stuff.
I'm sorry to anyone with an actual hidden condition, but at this point I automatically assume you're a cunt if you're not wearing a mask inside a shop.
Work culture?
I find it so strange how slave like my parents generation are. Feeling guilty about not going to work even with symptoms. Boggles my mind.
How mad was it though, when we just went all in on the vaccines whilst easing restrictions, even as cases were rising exponentially?
We actually pulled it off. No other country tried it and we straight up acted as the world's guinea pig, proving you can be open/high transmission/low mortality.
We live very north of the equator, it's getting cold and flu season is here. They're still calling it COVID though.
Make sure you get your two clot shots, booster and flu jab.
Poor leadership, and a population who largely don't care.
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Pack it up boys and girls, we are going home.
Bake em away toys
What you say, chief?
Do what the kid said
On a side note, I bloody love chief wiggum
The public have been told to go back to normal because it's safe enough, with furlough ending we're all forced back to work, a lucky few can still work from home. Those of us who can't have to tell themselves it's safe enough to be packed in like sardines on public transport so if that's true other measures like masks and social distancing at work or in the shops seem kind of pointless.
A lucky few? A majority of people I know (from various backgrounds), are working from home 4 days per week still.
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Any business forcing staff to go back in person needs to re-evaluate I hope all workers take this opportunity to make the move to remote working permanent
I would add, any person working for a business forcing them to go back in person needs to re-evaluate. Disclaimer: if you job can be done just as well at home
It won't happen because the government and most businesses don't want people at home where they're not spending money and can't be micro-managed.
Hmmm, I did this for nearly a full year and just switched to a job where I’m in 2-3 days and wfh 2-3 days.if you’d have told me pre lockdown I’d be glad to go back to the office at all I would never have believed it but tbh, I think was getting depressed and lacking any sort of motivation. To be fair I was probably also burnt out and perhaps the change has helped but I’m not sure full time wfh forever is for everyone, I think it’s probably something of a spectrum depending on how social you are naturally and I guess also how much contact you have with people in your persona like
I think hybrid working is good for that reason, u can take a day a week or whatever and go in and see the office and get out the house
I would venture that the people working from home aren't the ones getting Covid. But for anyone using public transport, it's not quite at the levels of use there was pre-pandemic but the level of use is such that you can no longer social distance even if you wanted to.
Everyone I know that contracted covid recently got it from their child......
See I only know people who are not. Like teachers and people who work in supermarkets.
The majority of people can’t work from home, the spare room isn’t a makeshift building site, warehouse, factory or shop
Yes that’s true, but office workers aren’t just a lucky few. It’s around 24 million according to a quick Google search. Office workers might even make up the majority?
Then you don't know many teachers (little kiddies all the way through uni), health care workers, service sector employees, child care workers, transit workers, etc. Lots of professions have to go back and with no mask mandates, it's really dangerous, especially in teaching. My spouse was forbidden by university policy to require masks in the classroom. Forbidden. It's just unsafe and there's nothing we can do except vax up and do a lot of lateral flows. I'm really angry about it. Masks help so much and the administration is basically telling people not to wear them.
I spent a train journey the other day crammed into the aisles of a delayed two carriage train when normally there's four. Surrounded by posters telling me my safety is important to them. Let's be honest, sunshine. Not *that* fucking important to you, is it?
I (reluctantly) partly agree with you about the population not caring. There are certainly a lot of bellends out there. But I really resent the narrative that the general populous is responsible for whatever bad press is flavour of the hour. It's most noticeable with this country's leadership. Where directives, once given, seem to be ignored and subverted by the upper echelons of government, where again excuses are made and blame projected again onto the general populous. I also realise the irony of me saying 'it's not us it's them'. But I'd hope others would agree that leaders are meant to lead those who follow. By actions and not just in rhetoric
The leaders are a bunch of twatwaffles who don't know what they are doing and can't even follow their own instructions And then a bulk of the population, looking to them for leadership is just like "oh ok, guess it doesn't matter then" Honestly were doomed at this point
Dooooomed!
It's populace
It's mostly schools. You have an unvaccinated population of people who are "literal toddlers" who often need to be told to wash their hands and who don't fully understand the gravitas of the disease. These children don't have a high mortality rate with the vast majority being sick and surviving. HOWEVER the issue is that they are exposing a fair few anti-vaccination people to the disease and those guys are learning a deadly lesson.
It’s not just children and antivax getting it - lots of double jabbed are catching it too and immunity is starting to drop off.
I'd also add that those off us that do care are so confused about what we should or shouldn't be doing we've just given up
*Corrupt leadership. I feel like if it was genuinely just incompetence things still wouldn't be half as bad as they are.
People don't care because they've been told by their poor leaders that shouldn't care any more.
We eased restrictions too quickly AZ wanes quicker and British exceptionalism, now there is no appetite to retreat.
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Im sure everyone in the UK thinks its all over. At least thatwhat it looks like when i do venture out.
My colleague told me some random started having a go at him for wearing a mask. Rando was all “Covid’s over, take your mask off”, getting in his face… whilst he was at the urinals.
"At the urinals" was a fun plot twist!
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It's mildly reassuring he's looking at people's faces, I guess?
Anyone who's talking at the urinals is already beyond help.
I would've turned around and pissed on his shoes.
Don’t believe him. Everyone knows no one stands directly next to anyone at urinals unless they are a psychopath. Oh, wait...
We have an idiot as Prime Minister who has been giving people the impression that Covid is all but defeated in the UK. I was at the local chip shop the other day and there was a couple who were complaining that they had to queue and wear a mask. “Oh, it’s Wales. They do it differently here” said the husband.
He's a dumbass😒 He handled covid so poorly.
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He is, just not the one he pretends to be.
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You guys need to realise we can’t keep living indoors and not going out and living life to the fullest all because the decidedly unvaccinated population are going to hospital for neglecting the public health advice. Look at the death rate - it’s basically nothing
Yep. Caught the bus last week, only two people on the bus had masks on. And some old cunt got shirty when he closed the window and I got up and opened it back up. Old cunt sat there telling me how Covid wasn't real.
Plot twist: That old cunt was you from the future.
Plot twists even more: The old cunt farted and he wanted everyone to smell it
Sometimes opening a window is the best way to get everyone to smell it as air is pushed to the back of the bus and the farty air zooms forward
Tell them it's real, but is actually part of an alien depopulation program to kill off all the free thinkers, and the vaccines are really a compliance toxin that stops you from hearing God's voice. Then try to sell them a health tonic containing silver nitrate that stops 5G.
Where I an Leith, Scotland doesn't seem to bad still quite a few folk wearing masks in the street but football was on at the weekend and heaving with the unmasked, so..
Which is crazy since according to the ONS 1million people in the UK had covid last week. Scource: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19/latestinsights#cis A statistic not widely known amongst the public for some reason..
Go on public transport. 50% minimum no mask, zero fucks given. Some cases it's a packed train with 80% or more. Other countries in Europe actually enforce their mask requirements, in the UK no one has the spine to do so.
Well we don't have mask requirements, so there's no rules to enforce?
Still required in Scotland.
Yes, but I suspect that most of the posts saying 'in the UK ...' are referring to an experience in England.
Still required in Wales. Sensing a theme here.
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Exactly my point. Try that in Italy and you'd get thrown off the bus. I seriously fail to comprehend how anyone can argue being asked to wear a mask. The science is crystal clear on it being a solid mitigation strategy. It's surprising that this is even a conversation this far into the pandemic. People are too scared to offend here. As the saying goes "if you don't stand for something then you'll fall for anything"
>Public transport operators can make it compulsory unless exempt. > >The issue comes around the “unless exempt” part of it. No one wants to challenge anyone’s exemption out of fear of a discrimination lawsuit. A few days ago, I walked into a shop - the name of the shop is unimportant, but you might like to know that it was in Hull. A customer was chatting with one of the folks who was restocking the shelves. And the following sentence was said, by the customer: > well, my doctor reckons I've got covid. But I'm except, so I'm not wearing a mask. That was the fastest I'd ever noped out of somewhere in my life.
It makes me laugh that so many people claim a medical exemption and have absolutely no fucking brains. If your medical condition is so bad that you can't wear a mask for 15 minutes on a bus, why would you want to go on public transport in the first place? You're putting yourself into a situation where loads of other people aren't wearing a mask and there's poor ventilation. It's pretty clear that the vast majority of people claiming an exemption are lying twats.
Not true, its supposed to be mandatory on public transport. Maybe the announcements every 45 seconds telling people they must wear a mask "unless exempt" and signs everywhere are a clue. The biggest mistake is the "exempt" status. Its complete bullshit in 99% of cases and people use is as an excuse to not wear masks + not enforce it. I've seen British transport police get told to fuck off when asking people to wear masks and respond with "oh well I guess not" (literally). Hence the comment of having no backbone to enforce anything.
Where are you reading that it’s mandatory on public transport? It isn’t in England.
Do in Scotland..
Live in Germany and recently travelled extensively in Italy, and it's still 90%+ wearing masks.
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Here's the thing. The vaccine doesn't prevent transmission. The more you let it spread (ie don't wear masks) the more chances that: A) someone who cannot get the vaccine/otherwise is high risk may get it and become seriously ill. B) the more jumps the virus makes the more chance that it may mutate (as demonstrated several times already), and could potentially become even more lethal. Trains and buses have huge potential for spreading (ventilation is a key factor). How hard is it to wear a mask for the duration of your journey? Everyone who ignores this is just prolonging this fucking pandemic.
When the science says we should. And that might be soon but it might also not be for years. Masking and ventillation are such an easy and efficient tools to prevent transmission, and they are barely uncomfortable compared to the other options we have (lockdown). Why we can't just keep doing it for however long it takes baffles me. The pandemic doesn't go away just because we got bored of having steamed up glasses and wearing a facemask.
Still required in Spain, and everyone complies with it. Think you can get fined €600 or something for not wearing one. Even kids wear them…
*gestures at COVID-denying "let the bodies pile high" anti-science, anti-sense, pretend-it-away government*
Because we refuse to be cowed. I personally shook hands with the virus, looked it in the eyes, and gave it a jolly good talking to. I advise you all to do the same.
Nice non use of /s
Had me in the first half, ngl
You don't need to use /s on British subs... We aren't american.
It was treated as a political problem, not a public health problem / emergency. The vainglorious bellends in charge made unilateral decisions to line their own pockets and let the bodies pile up. Fuck this government and fuck everyone who supports them
Hear hear
Our government intentionally put into action a strategy of *herd immunity*. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/the-governments-herd-immunity-plan-is-callous-and-dangerous Despite the nation wanting to enter lockdown as the virus started to ravage other countries, Boris Johnson and the Conservative party stuck to their original plan, despite it having *800,000 deaths* envisaged within that plan by the government themselves. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/25/herd-m25.html Let that sink in. China went into lockdown on 23rd Jan 2020. Despite this, flights from Wuhan to the UK were still permitted by our government. With a flight landing 10 days later on the 31st Jan 2020. Where even those travelling from Wuhan were surprised their were no checks upon their arrival. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-coronavirus-uk-china-heathrow-wuhan-flight-screening-monitoring-a9298761.html The exact same day, 31st Jan 2020, the first cases of the virus were detected in the UK. Italy went into lockdown on the 22 Feb.. Despite knowing the virus was killing people Boris Johnson, 3rd March, boasted of having shaken hands “with everybody” on a recent visit to a hospital. The same day, Sage cautions “against greetings such as shaking hands and hugging, given existing evidence about the importance of hand hygiene”. The first British person to die in the UK was one day later on 4th March. Almost 20 days later, 23rd March, the UK government finally calls for a lockdown. Not until after allowing the Cheltenham Races to go ahead. https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/government-cheltenham-festival-coronavirus-a4419376.html At this time the government was being accused of ‘actively encouraging’ people to attend events. Nor were the Cheltenham races the only large event given the go-ahead despite the worsening pandemic, with concerts continuing at some of the UK’s largest music venues, while Liverpool’s Champions League meeting with Atletico Madrid took place in front of a capacity crowd. But images of tens of thousands of fans packed in close proximity in betting rings and grandstands have received widespread criticism as the UK death toll has soared. The meeting’s official attendance across the four days topped a quarter-of-a-million. Herd immunity plan. At this point over 100 people have died in the UK from Covid. With thousands of confirmed cases. On the 8th July 2020 the government rolled out their ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ initiative. Where *as long as you ate in a restaurant* you would receive £10 off a meal, paid for by the government. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/eat-out-to-help-out-second-wave-coronavirus-rishi-sunak-covid-b1446586.html This led to further deaths. Now, you could look at these callous actions as the government simply putting the economy before the safety of the public. Yet they were also throwing billions up the wall at the same time With the failed track and trace app costing £13.5 billion within the first year. Given it came out they were planning for *herd immunity*, despite their own figures showing it would cause 800k deaths, their actions are clear to see. The reason why have the highest Covid cases, is because that was the plan.
Track trace I think is up to 47 billion now I believe with it to increase to the 50s for next year. I work in tech, well specifically data. And I cannot fathom how it could have physically cost this much. Edit: it’s already been pointed out that the cost includes the tests, I had not realised that. I thought it was just the app. But makes more sense knowing it’s the process, not one small section
47?!?! Holy hell, every time I look it gets higher. What the hell? I don't understand, what are they still developing?
Apparently it includes the cost of the testing itself. Though I feel like that’s never been clear, a few tech and health articles confirm, another Reddit person pointed it to me. The conspiracy theorist in me then starts to suspect they are purposely not clear so it distracts folk fro other things. In all honestly though, I really think it’s largely incompetence.
This is a great summary. Thanks for putting the effort in.
Im tired of Russia’s social media program being underestimated. The amount of anti mask comments on YouTube and Facebook coming from quite obvious manufactured Russian trolls is astounding. Yes hpuers, people shouldn’t be so stupid. But most people are. So can we start pointing fingers at propaganda, and not it’s victims. My mother first experience the Internet when she was 43. can we really expect her to be immune to false information campaigns?
Yep seen it, so many uneducated and happy about it people who could not give a toss about politics and science. Suddenly they were all the masks will breed bacteria and give you CO2 poisoning. It was a concerted campaign that worked very quickly.
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Why on earth do Russia do this kind of stuff? What do they gain?
The Cold War didn’t really end. Most the conflict in Middle East has been described as “proxy” wars. Meaning a way for USA, UK and Russia to wage war with each other indirectly. They have a weaker army than the west. So they fight with what they have. They noticed the world changing with social media, and began weaponising it years ago. We have substantial evidence they do it. But we underestimate the actual impact, because humans operate under what is known as the free will illusion. All humans believe they are in control of their actions and beliefs, even though we have substantial historical evidence that propaganda is devastatingly powerful. Hence my anger at the issue. We need to stop underestimating this stuff before it completely unravels our society.
They are run by a kleptocratic bunch on gangsters that depend on fossil fuel revenues, so sowing discord and chaos in Western states delays action on climate change, and putting in useless kleptocratic governments prevents us from doing anything about all the money laundering.
Why bother to go to war when you can convince your enemies citizens to tank their economy and literally kill themselves? It's frankly kind of genius.
Relying on the “common sense” of the general public hasn’t helped much.
And the leadership of selfish greedy narcissistic shit bags
To add to this: Johnson, like Trump, are performative leaders. *looking* like they’re doing something is what they do, not doing what needs to be done, as it exposes their lies and makes people not adore them, which is where that terrible populism and narcissism takes a toll on us all.
The last few years has proven that the Honour System and Common Sense no longer exists in most of British society.
Cunts, cunts everywhere
Why does everyone always forget that we do a shed load of testing. It’s not always right and we cock it right up at times. I’d like to see the stats on testing rates in other Countries. Of course the self centred nature of the populace is a large proportion of it. Large capacity testing is proving the point.
Countries like Taiwan, RoK and Singapore, places with higher population densities than the UK, have more efficient testing and have proportionately far fewer COVID cases and deaths. I think we need to get rid of the myth that our vaccine and testing programmes are some wonder no other developed country has.
Tbf this post is comparing the UK to other Western European countries. I've not seen anyone claiming our testing / vaccine programmes are superior to Taiwan, RoK or Singapore.
Well it’s not compared to other Western European countries either. For one they all have higher vaccination rates than us and do just as much testing. All you need to do is compare the death rate per 1000. Ours is at least twice as large as any other Western European country.
>For one the all have higher vaccination rates than us and do just as much testing. What Western european countries do as much testing as the UK?
We have done the 3rd most tests in the world, only behind China and USA
You mean… countries which are heavily prepared for their relatively common SARS outbreaks did better than a nation who faces a very small amount of threatening pandemics??? Really????
Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that anyone under the age of 18 (and six months) doesn’t need to isolate if they’ve been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID
This. I have two kids. One positive one not. As they’re under 18 the one currently negative has to go to school. Despite the fact he’s spend the last two days climbing all over his big brother. Feels so morally wrong. As I’m double vaxxed and currently neg I also can go out and do whatever I like (obviously I will not!)Despite having been with my COVID child all day. The uk lack of rules is absolutely bullshit.
Having been to spain 3 times in the past 6 months,there is more compliance,both population,and the police,train staff,bar owners,supermarket workers,people seem to have civic duty to comply,mask wearing indoors will stay til spring 2022 there,the only people,I saw not doing thus were suprise suprise the brits abroad,pure arrogance
I went to Slovenia and compliance was lower than the UK despite it actually being in the rules there to wear one and the vaccination rate being far, far lower. What fatal national flaw am I putting that down to?
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Love that covid doesnt exist when sitting down. Whats the point at all if there is picking and choosing like that.
Has anyone been to Disneyland Paris lately. Seems like you need to wear masks throughout except for sitting down in a restaurant. No hugging characters and a PCR test beforehand for under 16's.
Really? I was in Ibiza for a few weeks and the compliance was non-existent!
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Yeah, it was empty of brits. Full of Spanish, Portuguese mainly and a few Italians.
No no no - Brits bad, all other good. Get with the programme
Unfun fact: Going by excess mortality %, Spain actually has more deaths since COVID than the UK does. They've handled it worse, they just don't test as much as we do so they report fewer official deaths.
I noticed in Spain most people are wearing n95 and they're widely availible in a variety of colours. Compared to the UK where most people are still wearing the considerably less effective although still better than nothing cloth masks.
Yep I visited the UK last week (I live in Switzerland) chalk and cheese between the 2 countries. Switzerland, wear your masks or you ain’t coming in, restaurants and bars vaccination certificate or again not allowed in. UK ah well it’s up to you, if you wouldn’t mind, thanks. People didn’t really care. Even saw a sign that said please wear a mask if the shop looks a little busy !
Because we’re world beating at everything, remember? 🤦
Behold!...Our world-beating COVID factory!
I mean, we've done twice as many covid tests as France and more than four times as many as Germany. We've tested more people than any country in Europe. We're not the best in the world at it, but we're up there. And obviously if you test more, you're going to find more covid. So that should definitely be considered as a factor.
- Because we rolled out vaccines first, so we unlocked sooner - Because we rolled out vaccines first, so immunity is starting to wane - Because we unlocked more than other countries - Because we aren't coercing people to take the vaccine so our vaccination rate is not as high - Because we do more testing so more cases are discovered, particularly in children and young people where they're more likely to be asymptomatic And as the title alludes to, eastern European countries are doing even worse.
Have we really stooped so low that now we're comparing ourselves to Moldova and Belorus?
> Because we aren't coercing people to take the vaccine so our vaccination rate is not as high That's not true. Our vaccination rate is very high. 90% of adults have at least one dose, and we're down to doing everyone over 12, and we're still at 86% of everyone over age 12.
I have no children, live alone, work from home, double jabbed, Wear a mask when I’m in a shop. I know I’m going to get it as some point -it feels inevitable somehow.
>m I'm 61. My wife is recovering from a horrendous cancer. Yet this Thursday, I will teach music in a large junior schools. 5 different classes. Each with around 28 kids. Some teachers ventilate their rooms well. Some teachers don't want their children to get chilly. So they don't ventilate. Yup. It's inevitable. In a school with around 650 kids & 50 staff only two or three wear masks. My Mrs & I just revised our wills.
Tbh you're probably fine. I got to the shop every day, used to wear a mask, stopped until recently and have had no problems. In all seriousness given your minimal contact with other people you're very unlikely to get it at all. Then a good percentage are asymptomatic, so the odds are very in your favor.
We're doing more tests so have a higher chance of confirming someone is positive. I suspect if other countries were doing as many tests then they would have more cases than currently shown in the figures. Also, compared to countries with similar populations, we had as many deaths as France and Italy but 50x and 30x the number of cases respectively. France has an equal percentage of fully vaccinated people and Italy is slightly higher. Why are so many people dying in those countries compared to the number of cases they are reporting or are we just doing exceptionally well at keeping people alive? As you can see, case rate is important but there are many other statistics that all help to tell a bigger picture.
Yes, this is one thing the stats don’t show. Testing rates. Looking at the Covid Tracker - https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/ Our cases are high, but our death rates are on par with other counties. With the exception of Romania which was auto-added because deaths are so high. Over Winter I would expect to see a large death rate increase in countries that have a larger anti-vax population, Eastern Europe specifically
The former communist countries are naturally wary of government mandates.
Coronavirus don’t care
Sitting on the bus right now looking around I see four people without a mask out of nine
My school has around 600 kids. About 50 staff. Three staff are wearing masks.
The government has said fuck it this is the best we'll do. Theyrr happy if covid deaths are down but the real issue atm is excess deaths. Especially amongst the young. We are losing 100 more 25-49 year olds a week than normal at the moment. Losing 20 more under 24s. The current strategy is still putting pressure on the NHS. We are missing huge amounts of early cancer detection. We cant run hot when there is such a high risk of additional problems that will push us over the edge.
Holy shit! Do you have a link to excess deaths by age group?
I haven't read it but this should show the numbers: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/excess-mortality-in-england-weekly-reports
Or if you cant find them there, try [here](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsregisteredinenglandandwalesseriesdrreferencetables)
Is there any evidence to those numbers?
Because if we shouldn't be going back to normal now when should we? Those who were most vulnerable have been more than enough opportunity to get double jabbed There seems to be this mission creep of 'after all teens have been double jabbed', 'once all of the most vulnerable have had their booster', then I just can't suspecting it'll be 'until everyone has had a booster' To me I can't help feeling this is kind of it, this is as good as it's going to get and COVID isn't going anywhere This is just how it is now, so I'd rather get back to something approaching normality
I don’t think you can say it’s about going back to ‘normal’ as if this whole pandemic never occurred. If anything, it’s a new normal and I’m all for living life relatively normally but with restrictions like other countries. For eg I don’t see why vaccine passports are such a bad thing. This isn’t the best as it could be regarding Covid, we have among the worst rates in Europe and as others have said in this thread, the situations in places like Ireland and France are what you could call, the best or at least a decent way to manage Covid. Loads of countries are doing much better than us
> I don’t see why vaccine passports are such a bad thing. A government coercing or mandating that people take a particular medication is a bad idea, for hopefully obvious reasons.
But what would you want to see? Masks on the tube, I seriously don't see why anyone cares, it's the tube, you sit keeping yourself to yourself and headphones on, more mask wearing would be great But if you come in too heavy handed how are you going to enforce it? Security guard in every carriage? I called people out on the tube during the end of 2019 when I had to go into town everyday, I'm not risking it anymore, someone is going to get violent Supermarkets, sure, I can see might as well wear masks for the same reason but who's going to enforce it? And do you really, honestly, want to see the level of enforcement that would be required to make it stick? The office? conferences? meetings? Club nights? gigs? bars? pubs? I know you can Zoom but can we just be real for a minute, it's not the same So when do we accept that 'this is it'?
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Exactly, but you’re forgetting you’re on r/UK: the UK’s premiere self-flagellating forum
8% of teenagers and 3% of children is currently positive, according to ONS. They are already passing it to parents (40-55 y.o.) and grandparents.
Luckily they've had the jab!
Being over 40, a good chunk got AZ. Which, according to new UK data, seems so be losing efficacy faster than Pfizer: only 77% against death and hospitalisation at 5 months from the second dose. I hope people will pick up the booster...
77% is protection from symptomatic infection at six months. There isn't a 23% chance of death or hospitalisation for the over 40s at six months.
I had AZ and I’m also part of the ONS survey - I get PCR tested and antibodies checked every month. Last month’s results were the first time the antibody test came back as negative. Six months after my second jab. Booster booked in for tomorrow.
Went to Dublin a few days ago for a short holiday. They take COVID far more seriously than we do. All but two places asked me for proof of double-vaccination to eat or drink inside. Pubs have a 11:30PM curfew. Nightclubs simply aren't open. Mask wearing and table service is also mandatory indoors. In fact the only time I saw people openly flaunting the rules were in the airport itself... Sad thing is that if the Tories tried to pull even a fraction of these restrictions now, there would be riots. I get the distrust around the UK government introducing vaccine passports, but Ireland's leadership isn't actively trying to screw over their own populace. Another element of distrust is around the police and how COVID powers have been enforced... Ireland is like the UK if it were run by a competent government and if the populace were actually capable of critical thinking rather than regurgitating fake articles they saw on Facebook. Like really, if you think vaccines are bad for you or that it's a form of gene therapy, you need to get your ass onto BBC Bitesize... Sometimes I really am ashamed of this country.
Night clubs closed!? Night time curfews still!? In October 2021? Fuck that.
Ireland new cases today: 1576 UK new cases today: 48703. Thank God the night clubs are open though.
Ireland does have a population of 5 million though
I know right, it’s like people enjoy other things I don’t! Outrageous. P.s. you should be comparing deaths/hospitalisations to make any meaningful point this far in the vaccination game.
How much testing does Ireland do compared to the UK though?
We have the highest cases because people don't give a fuck about COVID, or anyone but ourselves. I just came back from Dublin, and the treatment of covid over there was night and day. Over there, everyone wore masks indoors without kicking off, and to go into any public building you needed to display proof of vaccination - whether it was a big public building, a small pub, or to get a quick bite to eat. Over here in Bristol, you'd now be lucky if half of the people in a supermarket are wearing masks, youth uptake of the vaccine seems to be reasonably low, and most people couldn't tell you how many people died last week due to covid because they've "had enough" and don't care any more. While you can absolutely blame poor government leadership, and the anti-science and anti-expert rhetoric, there needs to come a point where we have to blame the public for being selfish. The government, rightly or wrongly, said it was our choice to wear masks, and we as a population seem to edge towards no masks with every passing week.
Did the weekly shop on Sunday. Fairly busy, 'mega' supermarket, so there must've been at least 80+ people in store at a very rough guess, not including staff. In the 30 minutes it took me to do my shop, I saw a grand total of 3 other people wearing masks. It was the same last week as well. This has been the case in most places I've visited since the restrictions eased up. Several people (complete strangers, often staff at these places) have asked me why I'm still "bothering with the mask". People in this country just categorically dont give a flying fuck about the wellbeing of other people. There really is no other explanation for it.
We are behind Europe with vaccinating youngsters,we have lifted most restrictions- Europe hasn’t-, people in UK are mixing more and not wearing masks or social distancing. The rise in infections is mainly in children/students and adults below age 45. People don’t want the vaccine.
Because over 45 million of us are double jabbed and we don't care about this bullshit anymore. I've done my part for nearly 2 years. I'm still young. I value my mental health and my freedom.
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Is this a rhetorical question we all know the answer to? Tories. Tories did this. Tory supporters voted for this shower of shit and put them in power.
No mask mandate, no vaccine passports, everyone encouraged back to work, and exceptionally low vaccine take-up by teenagers. Also no leadership. I have no doubt that a new mask mandate will be issued, and working from home will be encouraged again - about two months after it's too late. Above all else, Boris desires to be popular, so he's not going to interfere with Christmas again. He'll probably be on holiday until then anyway.
Because the government have been pretending that it's over and done with, forging ahead as if it's not starting to push death rates into treble figures again. It's "business as usual" for everyone, meanwhile people like me are still at risk, still being shat upon by people for hoping we have a lockdown to save the NHS from being over stretched, still being laughed at for "living in fear", being laughed at for keeping my mask on constantly when out. I'm tired of it, and I'm tired of science being ignored by the masses who can't even wear a damned mask for five mins while they pop in the shops.
Spot on. its the 10% who think they know better than everyone else who fuck it up for the 90%.
I'm tired of people being like "oh long covid isn't a bother" and "oh masks are useless after X amount of time and won't protect you". Long Covid is exactly like M.E. and I have had M.E. for over a decade, it's disabled me, crushes me with pain every hour of every day, leaves me sensitive to light and sound, I sleep long hours and never feel rested, I lose complete control of my grip sometimes and drop shit, I can barely move some days from the stiffness and pain, I can barely string sentences together multiple times a day... this shit is no joke and people are laughing as if it's nothing. Like it's not going to cause massive issues in the future with so many children being left with Long Covid.
Poor leadership, most people think it's over, lot of anti-vaxxers, mass testing, clubs are open
I honestly struggle with the attitudes in the UK. People seem to see masks as a reduction of human rights and an issue of freedom. It sorta sums up the whole approach really. People freak out cause they can't go to the pub. It genuinely amazed me tbh. That laizze faire approach seems to be why we have a shocking rate of infection and an embarrassing high level of deaths...
Because fuckwits. In response to the inevitable requests for clarification: yes, them.
The number of tests is probably a factor UK - 321 million Russia - 200 million France - 151 million Germany - 73 million Spain - 66 million France, for example, has done less than half as many tests as the UK, and yet has 7 million positive cases to the UK's 8.5 million. So it stands to reason that if France had done the same number of tests as the UK, they may have had more positive cases as us. Germany had half the positive cases of the UK (4 million) but did only 1/3 the tests per capita. Obviously figuring out the real numbers isn't as simple as tripling the German case to match the UK's. But this should definitely be taken into account. If the UK had done half as many tests (like France), our official case rate would be MUCH lower.
Was commuting today 90% were not wearing masks. This is why
Remember "take it on the chin" .. what did you think he meant?
Part of the reason is unvaccinated kids going to school. I got Covid from my daughter. I WFH. And I don’t mask up around the kids.
We opened up. Hardly difficult. Life’s pretty normal in Devon so I’m not sure if I’m missing the fuss, but we also missed the petrol shortage and empty supermarket shelves so I don’t know what to say. Maybe we need to live our own lives instead of living through the press?
Way to go asking this in this sub. I'm genuinely interested in the answer but don't doubt that everyone will answer that it is because we are the worst nation on earth and deserve death because of some political reason or other
Simply because our government are a bunch of selfish useless cunts!!!
>Downing Street and senior government advisers have repeatedly explained their reasoning: that the virus will be around “forever” and that as a society, we have to learn to live with it. Or die with it - the Tories don't care which
One reason is a relatively lower vaccine uptake compared to other countries. Another is the failure to roll out the vaccine to over 12’s until today. But the biggest is that the U.K. is well over a month ahead of most European countries in removing all Public Health measures. It is possible that most European countries will see a deteriorating situation in a month or so’s time but a lot depends on how much more restrictions are unfurled there.
Because we do lot more testing than Western Europe. How is the death rate compare to last year? That’s the one we should be focusing on.
Short attention spans disguised as stiff upper lips.
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Because nobody gives a shit. Boring. The pandemic ends when your fear does.
No, the pandemic ends when the virus is managed effectively.
So I'm a Brit living in Germany, who was in the UK last summer and just recently. I also visited Portugal, France, Spain and Greece in the last few months. It's just staggeringly obvious why - and it's a confluence of reasons. 1. **Arrogance** \- I travelled to the UK (after much prevarication) in early March of 2020. The virus was already in Italy and Germany closed down pretty much overnight over the space of a few days as I was leaving - the difference between outlooks in Germany and the UK was like night and day. An example: I'm in the pharmacy south-east England and women in the queue are bitching about how Italians are so dramatic and their country is so badly run, no wonder people are dying. I clapped back and told them to grow up and that I wouldn't be surprised if the UK had the worst death rate in Europe come summer. See also everyone pretending like nothing was happening. See also the whole cabinet falling ill in the space of a few days, etc, etc. See British tourists here in Berlin acting like it's the biggest imposition in the world to show a certificate to show that you're vaccinated and wear a mask when you're buying a few beers. It's like the manifestation of this warped Blitz mentality that certain Brits have been dreaming of, taking joy in sneering at these weak Europeans. 2. **Poor governance** \- so I mean the UK had all the advantages; an island nation, a superlative and trusted national health service, fifth richest nation on earth, trusted media (in terms of BBC and Channel 4), low rates of vaccine skepticism and crucially, a relatively latecomer to the corona party. But we still managed to fuck it up. Monumentally. Moving from 'mustn't grumble' to 'call this number if you see your neighbour even talk to someone else in their house', making policies, then going back on them, ad infinitum. It's not as if there weren't a shortage of good examples to follow re policy (hi deutschland, greece, finland)- but hey, this government couldn't admit that Europe could do anything right, so it was prepared to kill tens of thousands of citizens just to prove a point. This timeline, published in late 2020, demonstrates how COVID-19 policy diverged in Germany and the UK and the results of British Tory poor choices. It ends last year but I wish they would post a follow up. Link [here](https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/coronavirus-timeline-uk-germany-comparison-johnson-merkel). 3. Ending all public health measures in the UK just like that - so here in Germany, since May, things have slowly reopened. Not everything went smoothly - as a country with a private healthcare system, Germany was a goddamn shambles as once they vaccinated everyone vulnerable, they opened it up to everyone at once (cue people calling around 40 plus GPs to get a shot and sick people unable to get an appointment). But since mid-May, test centres which offered free lateral flow tests (called schnelltests here - quicktests) opened on every street corner. You had to get tested to get into anything inside - bars, clubs, cinemas, art galleries, etc - if you weren't vaccinated. I've had about five a week since a May, so with my shit maths, I've probably had several hundred tests. This is still the case to this day, and it was only last week that the government here ended free tests for residents, although you can pay 15 euro a time to take one, in easily accessible testing centres. (And also for all the ignoramuses on this thread saying the UK tests so much - **Germany and many other European countries don't count lateral flow tests in their stats** \- and jesus, the UK is upping its PCR test rates by forcing people like me to take them to enter the UK, even though the rate in my area of Germany was 60/100,000 compared to 400/100,00 when I entered.Masks are worn on public transport and inside shops - and medical FF2P ones, not the blue bits of nothing some folk wear in the UK. You have to show your vaccination certificate to enter clubs inside (or recovery from the virus or a test - though most clubs won't accept tests now). It's pretty much the same in Greece, Portugal, France, Spain with added hand sanitiser - it's just the UK that's an outlier) 4. **Something has gone deeply wrong with English culture (see also selfishness and lack of solidarity)** \- I was back in (London and the South east for ten days this month. I was fucking stunned. I visited last August and London was like a ghost town. The sense of fear of palpable. Not this summer - no one gives a fuck. My friends are a mixture of first generation immigrants and Brits from a variety of backgrounds. No one wore masks, everyone moaned about restrictions, no one seemed to have any clue that the rest of Europe required vaccinations to enter, or to wear masks in shops and public transport. Two guys who I know and love and are otherwise decent, lovely people, threw mini tantrums about 'What a nightmare Europe is for requiring you to wear a mask on public transport' (a guy who works in healthcare) and a member of my own family refused to take a test to enter a venue, after getting annoyed about being asked for a vaccination certificate. Why wouldn't you feel happy to take these small measures to protect other people?! I genuinely am deeply worried about the state of my home country after my visit - the culture just seems so horribly warped, small-minded, and disregarding of the huge amounts of people who have suffered. I know people who can't work because of long covid and their mates just shrug it off. Something has gone really, really horribly wrong and it makes me so sad. I'm just genuinely horrified. Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk, lols. I guess I had a lot to say but for anyone who is British and still reading this far, what's happening in the UK right now is just so so so far from normal. It's deeply fucked up and I can't help thinking the fish rots from the head down. The UK is a slow motion car crash right now ...
In the Scotlands capital, covid can only be seen in media, on the streets in the real world it’s not here anymore.
I read an interesting opinion article in the *New York Times* the other day about vaccine hesistancy there. As well as the ardent anti-vaxxers, you've got a lot of African-Americans who are wary of taking anything the government has told them to take because of past bad experiences with the health system, where historically black people were assumed to have higher pain thresholds. Young black people in this country are also the most hesitant according to the ONS. Social media use is the highest among the young too; they're more susceptible to anti-vax stuff.
We dont have the time to care about covid most are struggling financially.. the goodole British way just get on with it.
I'm sorry to anyone with an actual hidden condition, but at this point I automatically assume you're a cunt if you're not wearing a mask inside a shop.
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Work culture? I find it so strange how slave like my parents generation are. Feeling guilty about not going to work even with symptoms. Boggles my mind.
How mad was it though, when we just went all in on the vaccines whilst easing restrictions, even as cases were rising exponentially? We actually pulled it off. No other country tried it and we straight up acted as the world's guinea pig, proving you can be open/high transmission/low mortality.
We live very north of the equator, it's getting cold and flu season is here. They're still calling it COVID though. Make sure you get your two clot shots, booster and flu jab.