Omicron and the elderly

[Flying Bomb]

No one yet knows how Omicron will affect the elderly, many who have had their booster months ago, so its efficacy is now declining.

Yet in spite of this unknown risk to us all, the virus is being allowed to
increase rapidly, day by day  without any attempt to slow its spread down.
We are being sacrificed on the altar of gambling with all our lives.

[Michael Rolls]

Nobody is 'allowing' the virus to spread - it is managing that by itself. As to steps to stop it - what do you suggest? If you mean total lockdown - it doesn't work in the long term and its effect upon the economy, children's schooling, treatment of other medical conditions, bankrupt businesses, mental health generally, and particularly in the lonely elderly, outweighs any short term improvement - emphasis on short term - it might - emphasis on might - achieve
Mike

[Flying Bomb]

Mask wearing everywhere does not shut business down, nor
does strict social distancing.

[klondike]

Nor does it stop the spread of the virus. You only have to look back at the course of the pandemic to realise that.

[Michael Rolls]

Mask wearing everywhere does not shut business down, nor
does strict social distancing.

But they haven't stopped the spread of the virus, despite being in place for so many months. If those ideas truly worked the virus would be vanishing. You can't blame the total spread of the virus on those who don't observe those measures - given the numbers involved it would be ridiculous.
Oh, and strict social distancing? Try telling the hospitality and travel industry it doesn't have a deleterious effect.
Mind you - I still feel people should get themselves vaccinated - by far the best defence
Mike

[klondike]

I still feel people should get themselves vaccinated - by far the best defence

Ashy had a downer on that. I'm guessing he must have had a friend or family member who had a serious adverse reaction and possibly died. He has pretty much stopped posting on PF and I suspect that may be something to do with why.

[Michael Rolls]

that's very sad to hear - every death is a tragedy, but the numbers of adverse reaction are minute compared to the number of vaccinations given and the deaths from the disease. Obviously absolutely no comfort to the families of those who have succumbed, but without teh vaccine there would be far, far more such families
Mike

[klondike]

Check back on his posts and you'll see what I mean

http://www.pensionersforum.co.uk/index.php?action=profile;u=2647

This was the one I remembered
http://www.pensionersforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,30520.msg644353.html#msg644353
but there were other mentions.

[Michael Rolls]

Must say that post seems a gross exaggeration. I did respond (I think - will check)
No, I didn't - must have been another thread, because I did query his over the top comments somewhere.
That long ago means checking hundreds of posts - but I do remember querying him claiming that 1,700+had been killed by the injections and asking for proof - never got any. The figure was the number of people who had died within a given period after receiving the vaccination with no analysis of actual cause of death
Mike

[klondike]

Yes that is so. Of course you could also argue that the COVID deaths figure is based on exactly the same sort of methodology 

I see the vaccines as imperfect and not 100% safe. Covid seemed to be a high risk for somebody of my age so I decided to chance the small risk a jab represented.

I do believe it should be up to everyone to have a choice though. The reasons for that are that a jab does not prevent infection or transmission - in fact there is evidence that it may make infection more likely daft as that sounds.

It probably does reduce severity but there is a lot of propaganda involved in proportions of jabbed and unjabbed in hospitals and intensive care. I've seen stats purported to be NHS ones that put the split nearer to 50/50. If you think about it there are a lot more jabbed than unjabbed in the population because uptake has been high so that is not as surprising as it may seem at first.

[Michael Rolls]

Johnson is claiming that 90% of ITU patients with Covid are unboostered - unclear if that meant totally unjabbed - I think so, but not sure
Mike

[klondike]

Somebody posted a story of weeping nurses in ITU about all the young folk dieing either here or PF. The weekly NHS death stats flatly denied the truth of that. In the story itself it said the report was produced by the local council iirc to boost booster takeup.

We are being fed stories that are dubious to say the least because HMG are convinced that booster jabs will mean they don't have to lockdown again. That may well be true but a lot of the stories being wheeled out frankly aren't if you subject them to a bit of scrutiny.