Laughing
Well-known member
I am not so sure the tier system worked at all. Once in a tier the only way was up. This suggests that even tier 3 did very little to stop infection rates rising, albeit better than tier 1.The tiers worked, but worked about 10-20% less than they were expecting, this is also a failure too mind, but it gave a lesson in how to use the tiers better (more cautiously).
The problem they had last year was they were 5 steps behind, they introduced tiers too late and then stayed in tiers too long, when they should have been locking down earlier. The tiers were not bad, but the timing was terrible, same with the lockdowns.
New strains are unavoidable, there's going to be new strains until the entire world is either immune, vaccinated or coronavirus doesn't exist (not happening). We can't stay locked down waiting for new strains, we just need to get better at detecting them and vaccinating for them. By "going mad" I mean this could be a mass of people meeting up with family and then mates, for meals or drinks, all at the same time, and mixing groups, I don't mean going to Magaluf
The appetite for the lockdowns is changing now, very quickly it seems, as people are very aware that 95% of the deaths were from one specific ground and that specific group should now be 99% covered from death (providing they got vaccinated). It's a harder sell to the public when there's no death, but the strange thing is this lag in the deaths is helping the lockdown at the minute, in a few weeks it won't be and it's always 3-4 weeks behind of course.
I can see why they're being cautious, as they were not last time when they should have been. The problem was, last time there was data telling us to be cautious and proactive, this time there doesn't appear to be data showing how we will go back into excess deaths.
Just to be clear, it makes little difference to myself, I'm fine locking down till May if I have to, I work from home and I'm quite secure, but there's a lot of others who will be increasingly thinking "what are we waiting for?". I think they have more justification now, certainly, 10 x more than we will have had on March the 8th last year.
I suspect that lockdown apetite will wane as the most vulnerable are vaccinated. We all want to get back to some kind of normality.
The problem with new strains when you are just over a peak is that they may impact much more if you are still seeing high numbers of fatalities.
Anyway kick off, chat later.