[evan_au]

Best thing is to stop testing everywhere except hospitals; as it is expensive and not beneficial to anyone

At present, where I live (Sydney) is in a "lockdown lite", caused by an outbreak of Delta variant. This was introduced via a man who drives international air crew to their hotels.
The government is trying to quell this outbreak by encouraging everyone to get tested, with even the mildest symptoms.
- Finding all infected people is the only way for contact tracers to detect all chains of transmission, and ensure that all contacts are in isolation before they become infectious.
- That is tough, because perhaps half of all infections are asymptomatic.
- In a city of 4 million people, there were 32,321 tests yesterday, ie almost almost 1% of the population, every day (and 45,000 for the subsequent day).
- It is vital to get this outbreak under control, because Australia has very low rates of vaccination (around 8%, not the 80%+ that you need for herd immunity against Delta variant).

acsinuk sounds like he & Boris are vaccinated - too bad about the rest!

[alancalverd]

Best thing is to stop testing everywhere except hospitals; as it is expensive and not beneficial to anyone

Testing arriving travellers is essential for as long as there is a pool of infection "out there". I have been working on a $1 3-minute breath test for live virus which should catch potential spreaders before they board a plane and infect 200 others: watch out for "CoronaCheck" (probably not the final brand name, and others may well be available) arriving on the market later this year. 

With around 15,000 new cases a day in the UK, and deaths beginning to accelerate, we can only expect more avoidable aggravation when our corrupt government declares "freedom" to infect each other again. We did not "learn to live with" polio, diphtheria, cholera, bubonic plague  or smallpox; why should we tolerate this obnoxious and avoidable disease?

[acsinuk (OP)]

But is the virus that affects most people like a common cold avoidable?  and how do we tell the difference?
We cannot live our lives in a state of fear all the time and suppress our children's education and economic prospects for ever while you mess about perfecting a vaccine.

[evan_au]

while you mess about perfecting a vaccine

I think the vaccines were pretty much perfected 6 months ago - as evidenced by their approval by FDA and other regulatory bodies.
- The effectiveness of the clinical trials was shown by the lack of side-effects that could be picked up in a trial of nx30,000 participants
- And subsequent close monitoring has picked up some rare events (clotting) at the level of cases per 100,000 (and carditis at even lower levels)
- This extreme level of scrutiny during the mass rollout has not been exercised for any previous medication (or any previous food or herbal remedy)

So you would have to say that the vaccines are pretty much perfected (as far as any medication can be) - for the original Wuhan strain

Now they just need to do it again for the Delta variant (and any other severe variants that pop up)
- But it should be easier the next time around..

[Bored chemist]

But is the virus that affects most people like a common cold avoidable?

Yes.
You vaccinate everybody (or, at least, the great majority).

And the NHS is well on the way to doing that.
Boris has decided to reward them with a smaller pay cut than the rest of the public sector (apart from MPs that is).
Boris has a clear incentive not to control the virus too well.
At the moment he can blame covid for some of the economic crash he caused by bringing in Brexit.

[alancalverd]

At the moment he can blame covid for some of the economic crash he caused by bringing in Brexit.

...and not handling COVID properly. Can't blame him for making a pig's ear of the public's wishes (that's just incompetence), but nobody voted for COVID. 

[alancalverd]

But is the virus that affects most people like a common cold avoidable?  and how do we tell the difference?
We cannot live our lives in a state of fear all the time and suppress our children's education and economic prospects for ever while you mess about perfecting a vaccine.

It's preventable by having a proper short-term national quarantine and absolute border controls. Problem is that these require competent and relatively incorrupt government. Telling everyone that they have 14 days' grace to get back from a major epidemic center like India without quarantine is electioneering, not public protection, and has buggered the economy of the Manchester area.

Never mind "most people", some 10% suffer longterm disability and 2 - 4% actually die unnecessarily: the health social and economic consequences of not taking preventive action are (as we have seen) horrendous.

How to tell the difference? See reply #101.

The way to abolish fear is to abolish the cause of fear, not tell people to "live with it".

[Bored chemist]

Can't blame him for making a pig's ear of the public's wishes (that's just incompetence)

Competence would have meant telling the public the truth, and he's not good at that.
He certainly wasn't going to tell them that they couldn't have Schrodinger's border or that leaving the EU would crash the economy.
They will find out anyway, but by playing this game, he can blame covid for the financial / employment problems.

He's really not a very nice man.

Telling everyone that they have 14 days' grace to get back from a major epidemic center like India without quarantine is electioneering,

No, that's trying to get a trade deal with India - because you threw away the old one and lied about having an "oven ready" replacement.

[alancalverd]

Competence would have meant telling the public the truth, and he's not good at that.

He's a politician. Telling the truth isn't in the job description. But ignoring the bloody obvious is inexcusable, and discharging infectious patients into nursing homes is criminal.

[Bored chemist]

Something like 95% of covid cases in the UK are a direct result of Boris not closing or restricting travel to and from India when the Delta variant became apparent.
That's the man who was elected to "take back control of the borders".
And the reason he did it wasn't electioneering- it can't have been- because he wasn't up for election at the time.
He did it in order not to mess up his trip to India to discuss a trade deal with the Indian PM.
And he shouldn't have had to do that; we had a perfectly good deal with them.

The reason for it was brexit.

Brexit is directly responsible for 95% of the covid cases in this country at the moment.
And, since it was brought about by liars, those liars should- as you imply- be held responsible for their criminal acts.

[alancalverd]

There were local council and by-elections in the north of England, with surprising successes for the conservatives.

The current wave of covid seems to have come, as you say, from India. I don't think the returning holidaymakers of Bolton were much involved with trade discussions at the time, or that the Indian government, beset with its own epidemic, was much concerned about the UK sausage trade, spurious litigation against Astra Zeneca Belgium, the operating losses of Eurotunnel, or any of the other ramifications of Brexit. Utter failure of border control, and putting the interests of brewery shareholders above public safety, have now led to some 32,000 new cases per day, with the number increasing each day despite the best efforts of the pharmaceutical industry.

Until the end of May, COVID deaths in the UK, France and Italy were of similar proportions. It would be difficult to establish a logical connection between the political events of January 2020, which involved the entire UK, and a spike in COVID infections specifically in the Manchester area 18 months later, in any rational mind.

[Bored chemist]

I don't think the returning holidaymakers of Bolton were much involved with trade discussions at the time

Had anyone said they were, or was that just an attempt at distraction?

don't think ... or that the Indian government, beset with its own epidemic, was much concerned about the UK sausage trade,

Oddly, the Indian govt seemed to think otherwise, and I guess they would know
It was widely reported.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/19/boris-johnson-cancels-india-trade-trip-covid-situation

If Boris has been interested in getting the votes from people of immigrant descent (Indian or otherwise) descent, he would have found a fridge to put Priti Patel in, rather than letting her denounce the idea of immigration.


Here's another mechanism for brexit to kill people
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57753277

We will certainly need to test some new vaccines if the world doesn't get covid under a lot better control.
Boris seems to be on covid's side rather than humanity's.
Perhaps the best covid control at the moment would be a new government or two.

[alancalverd]

Boris cancelling his trip and picking up the phone, is the first indication that the Chief Pigshagger has adapted his business practices to the 19th century.

Who knows, this might even trickle down to the backbench knuckledraggers who want the freedom to infect others, because that upstart Jenner was, after all, educated at St Andrews and probably never had intercourse with his intellectual superiors.

[alancalverd]

Boris cancelling his trip and picking up the phone, is the first indication that the Chief Pigshagger has adapted his business practices to the 19th century.

And just to prove how up-to-date World Beating Britain is, here., according to the Daily Mail, is what happened when a flight diverted for a medical emergency yesterday

The aircraft was met by emergency services upon landing in Edinburgh and the passenger was taken off the plane by a sedan chair.

Why no hackney carriage? Because those infernal Wright flying machines scare the horses, of course!

[acsinuk (OP)]

At last human rights are returning to Britain and we can get back to normal.  Boris has not trivialised the continuing crisis by suggesting some voluntary separation in public places but left it to venues to ask for any extra precautions [ like wearing of face masks] to be implemented if the management believes it to be necessary.
Draconian restrictions are out but voluntary common sense measures should be taken by people that feel vulnerable or at risk; which in my view was the attitude the government should have taken from the very beginning 

[Bored chemist]

At last human rights are returning to Britain

The right to spread death?

Have you seen the infection rates?
Boris is selling a lie that people are not ending up in hospital.

They are, fewer than before there was a vaccine, but that's not the point.
He is still killing people.

[alancalverd]

voluntary common sense measures

The only common sense measure is to avoid contact with anyone not recently confirmed negative. No idea how you can do that and lead a normal life.

[acsinuk (OP)]

We understand that travellers have to produce a 2 jab certificate or take a test before boarding a plane.  All quite clear. 
But if the checkin desk official thinks the passenger looks sick or unwell then I assume the management have the right or option to ask the passenger to take a covid test at no cost to the passenger and if it is positive then insist they rebook a week later flight at no cost to the passenger.
But what if you are returning from holiday and out of money??  Where will you stay and who will pay??

[Bored chemist]

who will pay??

It's 2021.
That's part of the cost of a holiday, so you pay it.
If you have any sense you will spread the risk via insurance.

[evan_au]

Draconian restrictions are out but voluntary common sense measures should be taken by people that feel vulnerable or at risk

...and also those that feel that they have a duty of care.
- I understand that the London underground will continue to insist on masks, as that enclosed environment carries a major risk for infection of both passengers and staff. It is up to the Mayor of London to impose this restriction, so Boris doesn't look like the bad boy any longer.

This will result in a patchwork of regulations which will confuse the public even more than they are already.
- A similar deregulation was done recently in the Netherlands; restrictions have now been re-imposed after a spike in cases there