R>1

[mattster]

I'm a pesimist on all this. Every time they ease I can't see how a huge spike can't happen and it's happened every single time bar none. The line in that graph is going to go north exponentially. Have they called it too early? Is it a potentially disasterous move? Time will tell I guess.

Yes, IMO they have called it too early - snatching potential defeat from the jaws of victory. At a minimum, keep distancing and mask wearing - I relaly don't think most (sane) people care too much about that, and life is pretty much back to near-normal already for many. If public transport gets busy again and is filled with non mask wearers, then that is going to be another major spreading point - I'm steering well clear.

The bottom line is that the government is now, finally, going for "herd immunity" of the young in preference to getting them all vaccinated, which it could presumably choose to do and get done over the summer if it really wanted to. We are about to find out what the effects of semi-deliberately infecting 15 odd million young people actually are (estimates are that 85% of the unvaccinated will get it in the coming months). The percentage that suffer might be small, but with such a high absolute number of cases that could still be a lot of people. We're also about to find out just how effective these vaccines really are.

[SueEllen]

Yep but the horse will have bolted. My son (early 20's) and all his mates are now of the (incorrect) opinion covid is over. They couldn't be more wrong. Their heads aren now past it so any new mandates/rules/measure are going to be a complete waste of time. Too late to turn back now.

That is until he catches.

Unfortunately he's unlikely to be ill from it though older people he infects are likely to be.

[quackhandle]

Yep but the horse will have bolted. My son (early 20's) and all his mates are now of the (incorrect) opinion covid is over. They couldn't be more wrong. Their heads aren now past it so any new mandates/rules/measure are going to be a complete waste of time. Too late to turn back now.

Same thing happened last summer - I spoke/listened to both young and old who thought it was all over.

qh

[northernladuk]

When the next mask mandate comes in we will be blamed for not being responsible...

Yep but the horse will have bolted. My son (early 20's) and all his mates are now of the (incorrect) opinion covid is over. They couldn't be more wrong. Their heads aren now past it so any new mandates/rules/measure are going to be a complete waste of time. Too late to turn back now.

[northernladuk]

I guess the biggest changes on freedom day are going to be pubs and clubs. At least its not winter, so perhaps pubs won't be as packed inside as they might be, but clubs is a different matter. It's been a while since I went clubbing I must admit, but you could easily imagine just a few contagious people in there infecting just about everyone else over the course of an evening. No idea how many people actually go clubbing these days, or whether or not they'll want to right now, but could imagine an uptick infection there. Having said that, the government has been fairly clear that it actually wants as many young people as possible (including children) to get infected before winter, so perhaps this is all part of the plan?

I think the distinction between pubs and clubs is a confusing one. We have no clubs in our local town centre (Bury) but instead a load of pubs, Irish bar, Weatherspoon and a load of independants. All been doing table service but come Friday it's going to be shoulder to shoulder as it was normally on a Friday/Saturday. In fact it's gonna be absolutle mayhem as everyone is going out from what I can tell.
Going clubbing is a time gone by unless you live in a city centre. It's all pubs and winebars now.

So I'd say when you count pubs you've got to consider town centre pubs that are shoulder to shoulder on weekend nights as well.

I'm a pesimist on all this. Every time they ease I can't see how a huge spike can't happen and it's happened every single time bar none. The line in that graph is going to go north exponentially. Have they called it too early? Is it a potentially disasterous move? Time will tell I guess. Maybe the balance between a normal life and lockdown has arrived but covid is gonna be all over the news as it escalates out of control for the next few months. The only saving grace is people aren't dying in great numbers and the NHS isn't overwhelmed. Still gonna be a miserable time for more than enough people IMO.

[mattster]

I suppose we might hope, ironically, that lifting restrictions will not make such a big impact because everyone has pretty much stopped following restrictions. But even that may be false hope.

I guess the biggest changes on freedom day are going to be pubs and clubs. At least its not winter, so perhaps pubs won't be as packed inside as they might be, but clubs is a different matter. It's been a while since I went clubbing I must admit, but you could easily imagine just a few contagious people in there infecting just about everyone else over the course of an evening. No idea how many people actually go clubbing these days, or whether or not they'll want to right now, but could imagine an uptick infection there. Having said that, the government has been fairly clear that it actually wants as many young people as possible (including children) to get infected before winter, so perhaps this is all part of the plan?

[d000hg]

So this is looking good... before restrictions even lift, cases are rising as fast as they were when things were at their worst last winter.
I suppose we might hope, ironically, that lifting restrictions will not make such a big impact because everyone has pretty much stopped following restrictions. But even that may be false hope.

[d000hg]

Ideologically I am with "personal responsibility not government rule", but pragmatically I have met actual people. The line "people can be trusted to make informed, considerate decisions" puts journalists in a sticky position but is clearly tosh.

[SueEllen]

"If we can't reopen our society in the next few weeks... we must ask ourselves 'when will we be able to reopen?'," the PM says

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57718061

WHEN YOU ******* SURE IT'S THE RIGHT MOVE, THAT'S ******* WHEN!

And it's YOUR ******* job to get to that date sooner.

Not even Trump was dumb enough to do such tulip.

When the next mask mandate comes in we will be blamed for not being responsible...

[d000hg]

Unfortunately smaller ones are the ones least likely to continue it. The extra staff overheads to run table service can double or triple your staffing costs, or it puts staff under much more pressure. Our three local pubs, all small operations, have all had to put more staff on each shift to deal with the workload. You don't go to the bar, where there are one or two staff serving, you sit at your table and wait to be served and in order to avoid long waits that needs more staff on to cover it. That's not sustainable in the long term without prices going up to compensate in a market where people like Tim Martin pride themselves on undercutting the local competition on price per pint and hammering breweries on pricing to do it.

Well yes if you want better service it costs more.