Britain Prepares To 'Live With The Virus' And Remove Nearly All Covid Restrictions: WaPo

[appalachiablue]

- UK Health Minister Sajid Javid previously served in Boris Johnson's cabinet as chancellor.
_____
'Britain plans to end legal mandates for masks and social distancing on July 19, Boris Johnson says.' By William Booth, The Washington Post, July 5, 2021. - Excerpts, Edited.

LONDON —During the long arc of the pandemic, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the British government have loved to deploy snappy slogans. The latest is "Hands, Face, Space." Now the emphasis is clearly turning away from government mandate to personal responsibility. Ministers for the past few days have been repeating the line that the public must now “learn to live with the virus,” which does raise the question of what people have been doing for the last 16 months, through 3 national lockdowns and 128,000 deaths.

On Monday, the prime minister is expected to announce that the government will lift all — or almost all — social distancing and mask-wearing mandates on July 19.

Johnson will urge the people to “act responsibly” and “exercise judgment” and “carefully manage” their risks. But the prime minister will also say that the decision of whether to socially distance will be mostly voluntary. Ministers concede that infections will likely rise when mandates are eased, but the government hopes that the number of hospitalizations and deaths will be limited by the ongoing vaccination campaign, one of the most successful in the world. Johnson’s decision to fully open for commerce, travel and summer fun comes with risks. The prime minister has lifted lockdowns and eased measures in the past, only to see the virus come roaring back.

Britain may arguably be in the middle a 3rd wave of infections now, with new cases soaring to 25,000 a day, twice the numbers seen in the much larger U.S. The rising cases, doubling every 8 days, are driven by the delta variant. The new strain is now dominant in Britain and scientists estimate it may be 40 to 60% more transmissible than the earlier alpha variant. Johnson’s move to make mask-wearing voluntary has been met with criticism by some scientists. Susan Michie, a psychologist and a member of the Sage committee of scientific advisers, tweeted: "Allowing community transmission to surge is like building new ‘variant factories’ at a very fast rate.”

The British Medical Association is urging the government to continue to advise the public to wear masks in public areas such as shops and public transport, and to stress the importance of good ventilation. Britain's new health secretary, Sajid Javid is gung-ho to move forward and open the country fully. He acknowledged that some people will become sick and some will die, but said the pandemic is under control and it is time to move on. “No date we choose comes with zero-risk for covid,” Javid told the House of Commons. “We cannot eliminate it, instead we have to learn to live with it.”...

More,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/britain-prepares-to-live-with-the-virus-and-remove-nearly-all-covid-restrictions/ar-AALNj8x
______

Scientists Caution That Lifting of Covid Rules Is Like Building 'Covid Factories'
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142765305

[Texaswitchy]

1. Brave of them.

Many will die.

[appalachiablue]

3. Applying the 'take personal responsibility'

and 'no government interference' is straight out of the conservative libertarian handbook begun by PM Mgt. Thatcher in the late 1970s and others of that ilk. It's the economy, business and profit over the welfare of people and society- pure selfishness; you're on your own, do or die.

If Trump had won, this is what we would have been facing more of with far right advisors like Scott Atlas who favored 'herd immunity' hands off, and other characters, heaven help us.

[Texaswitchy]

4. Yes

We would not have so many people with both shots or any shots without President Biden.

Great Britain still have their Trump.

[jimfields33]

6. We've done that basically here

Even liberal state of Washington state is open. Heck even celebrated the fact.

[Wingus Dingus]

2. I don't have a problem with it--I think the one big factor that should

trigger a return to precautions and restrictions is the overwhelming of medical capacity. Beyond that, and better-developed or targeted vaccines for new variants, there's not much left to be done.

[Native]

5. Makes sense considering their vaccination rate: 45 MM (85%) have had a 1st dose & 33 MM their 2nd.

Some 45 million people have had a first vaccine dose in Britain — about 85 percent of the adult population — and another 33 million have had their second.

[OhioChick]

7. You just can't live with this type of virus....

[uriel1972]

8. What could possibly go wrong?

This isn't the 'flu, with lambda being found in 30 countries and so many more on the horizon. This will end badly, I'm thinking.