So, coronavirus...

[Saint]

Re Hancock - if no-one is voicing the cautious view then in Cabinet government it doesn;t really get heard, and policy shifts regardless. I suspect that Javid was selected at least in part for his more hawkish views on accelerating the release.

Re infections - as I said, provided the link between infections and hospitalisation/death is sufficiently weak then infections rising at any rate, whether linearly or exponentially simply doesn't matter. We don;t know how weak the link is at this point but the data is beginning to suggest that it's extremely weak. Even so, I would still have preferred a more gradual process, but I can pretty much understand what they;re doing and why. Only time will tell how wqeak that link actually is

[Calculon]

And it almost goes without saying the question will weigh even heavier in countries with a bit of resistance in the vulnerable pops. France is approx 20% unvaxxed in the 75+ range, 10% in the 60-75ish. Romania has struggled as well.

Will a "full rip" with those 10%-20% equate to the same pressure health systems experienced when entire pop susceptible under lockdown? Will there be any behavioural experts in those countries looking at them and say "if they start dying, they will likely start getting jabbed"?

I don't know but there might be a fair bit of social and political acceptance of anti vaxxers dying

[SaintK]

Re Hancock - if no-one is voicing the cautious view then in Cabinet government it doesn;t really get heard, and policy shifts regardless. I suspect that Javid was selected at least in part for his more hawkish views on accelerating the release.

Re infections - as I said, provided the link between infections and hospitalisation/death is sufficiently weak then infections rising at any rate, whether linearly or exponentially simply doesn't matter. We don;t know how weak the link is at this point but the data is beginning to suggest that it's extremely weak. Even so, I would still have preferred a more gradual process, but I can pretty much understand what they;re doing and why. Only time will tell how wqeak that link actually is

Very much so. With Hancock gone, Gove is the only"dove" in the main decision making quartet now.

[dpedin]

Re Hancock - if no-one is voicing the cautious view then in Cabinet government it doesn;t really get heard, and policy shifts regardless. I suspect that Javid was selected at least in part for his more hawkish views on accelerating the release.

Re infections - as I said, provided the link between infections and hospitalisation/death is sufficiently weak then infections rising at any rate, whether linearly or exponentially simply doesn't matter. We don;t know how weak the link is at this point but the data is beginning to suggest that it's extremely weak. Even so, I would still have preferred a more gradual process, but I can pretty much understand what they;re doing and why. Only time will tell how wqeak that link actually is

Problem is even if it is a small % of those infected that are hospitalised a small % of a very large number is itself a very large number! We also still need to think of long covid and what % of those infected will suffer longer term illness and incapacity. For the NHS staffing is a now a major issue at the moment - again if large numbers are infected then this will include a large % of NHS staff, even though they have been double vaccinated, or pinged or off looking after infected kids, etc. NHS is already under pressure in A&E and is closing beds and stopping elective work due to lack of staff. Plus exhausted staff are now looking to take back often cancelled annual leave and time due back so gaps are even larger. Also heard that the staff agency companies are trying to capitalise on staff shortages by pushing up prices. All this means that elective work is suffering badly. The complete relaxation of the covid mitigations will only lead to more staff off and greater pressure on the NHS.

Let's be clear this Gov is now pushing a herd immunity strategy through community transmission and infection even though we have a very effective vaccination programme. The ones who will suffer will be the young and the frail who haven't or can't be vaccinated. To remove all mitigations is merely an attempt to speed up the rate of community transmission and achieve herd immunity quicker, regardless of the cost in lives and well being. It is ludicrous, if not criminal, to not maintain basic mitigation strategies such as mask wearing, social distancing, improved ventilation, etc. Why are they doing this? I suspect that they know we are in for a difficult winter with flu and other seasonal respiratory viruses and if covid is still around then they will inevitably have to go into some form of partial lock down again and of course the Blonde Bumblecunt doesn't want to do this as he has promised we won't. So his alternative is to allow covid to burn through the semi vaccinated and the unvaccinated as quickly as possible and keep his fingers crossed it doesn't end up too bad! He will call this a difficult decision, WHO call it epidemiological stupidity!

[Insane_Homer]

[Saint]

Re Hancock - if no-one is voicing the cautious view then in Cabinet government it doesn;t really get heard, and policy shifts regardless. I suspect that Javid was selected at least in part for his more hawkish views on accelerating the release.

Re infections - as I said, provided the link between infections and hospitalisation/death is sufficiently weak then infections rising at any rate, whether linearly or exponentially simply doesn't matter. We don;t know how weak the link is at this point but the data is beginning to suggest that it's extremely weak. Even so, I would still have preferred a more gradual process, but I can pretty much understand what they;re doing and why. Only time will tell how wqeak that link actually is

Problem is even if it is a small % of those infected that are hospitalised a small % of a very large number is itself a very large number! We also still need to think of long covid and what % of those infected will suffer longer term illness and incapacity. For the NHS staffing is a now a major issue at the moment - again if large numbers are infected then this will include a large % of NHS staff, even though they have been double vaccinated, or pinged or off looking after infected kids, etc. NHS is already under pressure in A&E and is closing beds and stopping elective work due to lack of staff. Plus exhausted staff are now looking to take back often cancelled annual leave and time due back so gaps are even larger. Also heard that the staff agency companies are trying to capitalise on staff shortages by pushing up prices. All this means that elective work is suffering badly. The complete relaxation of the covid mitigations will only lead to more staff off and greater pressure on the NHS.

Let's be clear this Gov is now pushing a herd immunity strategy through community transmission and infection even though we have a very effective vaccination programme. The ones who will suffer will be the young and the frail who haven't or can't be vaccinated. To remove all mitigations is merely an attempt to speed up the rate of community transmission and achieve herd immunity quicker, regardless of the cost in lives and well being. It is ludicrous, if not criminal, to not maintain basic mitigation strategies such as mask wearing, social distancing, improved ventilation, etc. Why are they doing this? I suspect that they know we are in for a difficult winter with flu and other seasonal respiratory viruses and if covid is still around then they will inevitably have to go into some form of partial lock down again and of course the Blonde Bumblecunt doesn't want to do this as he has promised we won't. So his alternative is to allow covid to burn through the semi vaccinated and the unvaccinated as quickly as possible and keep his fingers crossed it doesn't end up too bad! He will call this a difficult decision, WHO call it epidemiological stupidity!

I get that point - but with a vaccine that is around 60% effective at preventing infection, there's no way of stopping infections being a very large number short of continuing strong lockdown measures. The only way to slow down infection rates at this point would be to return to Stage II, which clearly isn't viable and would simply be ingored by the general population. Staying at Stage III in the current situation doesn't appear to meet any criteria in terms of preventing infection or unlocking things further, so it's not really a viable place to be either. As I've said I would be strongly advocating a far more gradual move to "the big unlock" as I am acutely aware of the pressures on the NHS, but I can understand what and why and it isn't completely unreasonable

[fishfoodie]

Re Hancock - if no-one is voicing the cautious view then in Cabinet government it doesn;t really get heard, and policy shifts regardless. I suspect that Javid was selected at least in part for his more hawkish views on accelerating the release.

Re infections - as I said, provided the link between infections and hospitalisation/death is sufficiently weak then infections rising at any rate, whether linearly or exponentially simply doesn't matter. We don;t know how weak the link is at this point but the data is beginning to suggest that it's extremely weak. Even so, I would still have preferred a more gradual process, but I can pretty much understand what they;re doing and why. Only time will tell how wqeak that link actually is

and the weakness of the link, is dependent on what variant is dominant at any moment in time; & deliberately creating hundreds of thousands of new infected people, will speed up the mutation of more variants.

[Calculon]

Even if you could somehow stop new variants emerging in the UK, they will still develop elsewhere, and then enter the UK.

[fishfoodie]

Even if you could somehow stop new variants emerging in the UK, they will still develop elsewhere, and then enter the UK.

That's like every Country just pointing their fingers at China & the US, when it comes to Global Warming.

Variants evolve in response to their hosts, & the environment; so no; they might not evolve exactly the same way somewhere else; or they might; but the fact is that the number of variants correlates to the number of cases; & we all have a hand in that number

[Saint]

With regards to variant evolution in the UK

1 - All you're doing is changing the timescale. If you accept that 40% of vaccinated people + all others are now pretty much guaranteed to catch Delta, there's effectively the same number of opportunities for Delta to mutate further. We're just changing the timescales for that mutation between 3 and 6 months (for arguments sake)

2 - variants in a virus like this don't really respond as you've described. They succeed based effectively on two factors - firstly, are they more infectious, and secondly are they LESS deadly (but that factor takes a lot longer to come into play). That's pretty much it

So tge only real factor in the UK that matters is hospitalisation and death rate. If we can manage the former to control the latter that's as good as we can do unless you want to hang around for a Delta specific vaccine.

I would just like more careful moves to ensure that we are managing hospitalisation

[robmatic]

Even if you could somehow stop new variants emerging in the UK, they will still develop elsewhere, and then enter the UK.

Yeah, there's a few billion people in the world who won't be getting vaccinated in a hurry. Statistically new variants are pretty much guaranteed to arise elsewhere.

[Sandstorm]

What can’t you do In England today under Stage III lockdown? Go clubbing, drink a pint at the bar and er…….

Draconian curtailing of basic human rights and freedoms apparently.

[Calculon]

Even if you could somehow stop new variants emerging in the UK, they will still develop elsewhere, and then enter the UK.

That's like every Country just pointing their fingers at China & the US, when it comes to Global Warming.

Variants evolve in response to their hosts, & the environment; so no; they might not evolve exactly the same way somewhere else; or they might; but the fact is that the number of variants correlates to the number of cases; & we all have a hand in that number

yeah... to an extent it is a numbers game but maybe worth bearing in mind that all the VOC have been thought , or at least theorized, to have emerged from immunocompromised people. Not because they are immunocompromised but because they have been infected and kept alive for months using antibody therapy, just like how antibiotic resistance develops. Also playing devil’s advocate, but in terms of vaccine development it is easier if there is just one dominant strains, open borders would obviously help with this. So open borders, mass world wide vaccinations and not letting immunocompromised people stay infected for months with sars cov 2 might be effective in limiting the development of variants. Let’s also hope that animal reservoirs other than bats don’t develop – then we could be truly fucked

Anyway, there hasn’t been any indication that vaccine development won’t be able to keep pace with variant changes. We are also seeing the same spike protein mutations arise independently in different variants, so it’s likely there is a limited number of (easy) ways for the virus to increase fitness and that those ways have already been taken.

[Saint]

What can’t you do In England today under Stage III lockdown? Go clubbing, drink a pint at the bar and er…….

Draconian curtailing of basic human rights and freedoms apparently.

Go to the theatre, all sorts of arts stuff....

There's a huge chunk of the economy(and all the related jobs) that are still closed down in Stage III. This is supposed to be a transitional stage only

[Sandstorm]

What can’t you do In England today under Stage III lockdown? Go clubbing, drink a pint at the bar and er…….

Draconian curtailing of basic human rights and freedoms apparently.

Go to the theatre, all sorts of arts stuff....

There's a huge chunk of the economy(and all the related jobs) that are still closed down in Stage III. This is supposed to be a transitional stage only

Theatres are open, so are cinemas. Not all full capacity granted, but they are open. The local theatre up the road tonight is heaving.

[frodder]

What can’t you do In England today under Stage III lockdown? Go clubbing, drink a pint at the bar and er…….

Draconian curtailing of basic human rights and freedoms apparently.

Go to the theatre, all sorts of arts stuff....

There's a huge chunk of the economy(and all the related jobs) that are still closed down in Stage III. This is supposed to be a transitional stage only

Theatres are open, so are cinemas. Not all full capacity granted, but they are open. The local theatre up the road tonight is heaving.

Events eg football matches (with some obvious exceptions) with severely limited capacity. Outdoor festivals severely limited

[Saint]

What can’t you do In England today under Stage III lockdown? Go clubbing, drink a pint at the bar and er…….

Draconian curtailing of basic human rights and freedoms apparently.

Go to the theatre, all sorts of arts stuff....

There's a huge chunk of the economy(and all the related jobs) that are still closed down in Stage III. This is supposed to be a transitional stage only

Theatres are open, so are cinemas. Not all full capacity granted, but they are open. The local theatre up the road tonight is heaving.

Most theatres barely make money at full capacity. The whole arts sector is screwed until the brakes come off. Stage III is the worst of all world's for everybody - not enough lockdown to keep infections under control, too much to allow various parts of the economy to realistically resume. My objection is the move to Stage IV as an all or nothing affair

[Sandstorm]

Go to the theatre, all sorts of arts stuff....

There's a huge chunk of the economy(and all the related jobs) that are still closed down in Stage III. This is supposed to be a transitional stage only

Theatres are open, so are cinemas. Not all full capacity granted, but they are open. The local theatre up the road tonight is heaving.

Events eg football matches (with some obvious exceptions) with severely limited capacity. Outdoor festivals severely limited

So you can go to a football match? And a festival.
So, neither can’t be done today.

Next please.

[frodder]

Theatres are open, so are cinemas. Not all full capacity granted, but they are open. The local theatre up the road tonight is heaving.

Events eg football matches (with some obvious exceptions) with severely limited capacity. Outdoor festivals severely limited

So you can go to a football match? And a festival.
So, neither can’t be done today.

Next please.

Meeting indoors limited to 6 people. Shirley you know this as well

[Sandstorm]

Events eg football matches (with some obvious exceptions) with severely limited capacity. Outdoor festivals severely limited

So you can go to a football match? And a festival.
So, neither can’t be done today.

Next please.

Meeting indoors limited to 6 people. Shirley you know this as well

So meet outdoors. And weddings indoors are 30, outdoors unlimited.

[Sandstorm]

R-number. Remember that important thing from last year we couldn’t stop monitoring?

R is 1.2 today.

“Hey. Let’s drop all restrictions!!!”

[frodder]

So you can go to a football match? And a festival.
So, neither can’t be done today.

Next please.

Meeting indoors limited to 6 people. Shirley you know this as well

So meet outdoors. And weddings indoors are 30, outdoors unlimited.

Hey you asked the differences.....

Knock yourself out

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-19-co ... -cannot-do

[Saint]

R-number. Remember that important thing from last year we couldn’t stop monitoring?

R is 1.2 today.

“Hey. Let’s drop all restrictions!!!”

Again - if the link is broken enough (even if not completely) then it's completely irrelevant. If it's not then this is going to be a godforsaken disaster. Which is why I would relax things more gradually myself, just so we can be sure that the link is broken. But the alternative if you're genuinely worried aboutbthebr number is to tighten up, not stay where we are

[SaintK]

R-number. Remember that important thing from last year we couldn’t stop monitoring?

R is 1.2 today.

“Hey. Let’s drop all restrictions!!!”

Again - if the link is broken enough (even if not completely) then it's completely irrelevant. If it's not then this is going to be a godforsaken disaster. Which is why I would relax things more gradually myself, just so we can be sure that the link is broken. But the alternative if you're genuinely worried aboutbthebr number is to tighten up, not stay where we are

Should imagine there will be a little less rhetoric and some rowing back on Monday

Two Whitehall sources told the Guardian that ministers had been spooked by internal polling. One said the data showed just 10% of the public support the policy of scrapping all restrictions at once, while another said substantially more people believed the government was moving too quickly than at the last reopening step on 17 May.

[Rinkals]

Can somebody explain something for me:

Does the vaccine stop the virus in it's tracks or does it simply ameliorate the symptoms.

I would imagine that, if it does the latter, then it should limit the damage to cells, which should make it more difficult to spread?

I'm just a little concerned that it simply masks the symptoms without seriously diminishing its ability to be contagious. Which would make it even more dangerous, especially in an unvaccinated population.

Am I overthinking this?

[Saint]

Can somebody explain something for me:

Does the vaccine stop the virus in it's tracks or does it simply ameliorate the symptoms.

I would imagine that, if it does the latter, then it should limit the damage to cells, which should make it more difficult to spread?

I'm just a little concerned that it simply masks the symptoms without seriously diminishing its ability to be contagious. Which would make it even more dangerous, especially in an unvaccinated population.

Am I overthinking this?

It depends on the variant. Assuming Delta, it's around 60% effective at preventing infection, and 95% effective at preventing hospitalisation. In that gap between the 60% and 95% you have a range from asymptomatic but possibly contagious, through to fully symptomatic but manageable at home.

[BnM]

We've had our first death since the 29th March here in Harrogate.

[dpedin]

R-number. Remember that important thing from last year we couldn’t stop monitoring?

R is 1.2 today.

“Hey. Let’s drop all restrictions!!!”

Again - if the link is broken enough (even if not completely) then it's completely irrelevant. If it's not then this is going to be a godforsaken disaster. Which is why I would relax things more gradually myself, just so we can be sure that the link is broken. But the alternative if you're genuinely worried aboutbthebr number is to tighten up, not stay where we are

Should imagine there will be a little less rhetoric and some rowing back on Monday

Two Whitehall sources told the Guardian that ministers had been spooked by internal polling. One said the data showed just 10% of the public support the policy of scrapping all restrictions at once, while another said substantially more people believed the government was moving too quickly than at the last reopening step on 17 May.

Not surprised that once the bluster and congrats from the right wing, the 1922 group and the venture capitalists have died down they are now shitting their pants at the potential disaster they have created. There is overwhelming criticism now from the vast majority of the scientists and docs and disbelief that a simple PH mitigation such as wearing a mask is no longer going to be required. WHO, BMA, RCN, Royal Colleges, NHS Employers, etc are all being very vocal in their concerns. The Gov abdication of their responsibilities for protecting the public health of the population doesn't come without serious consequences and I suspect they are beginning to realise this now. However they have backed themselves into a corner now and the genie is probably now out of the bottle so too late to reverse Freedom Day? They are just going to tough this out and blame any consequences on whoever they can find to be the fall guys ... reminds me a bit of Brexit.

[Raggs]

So we have more people entering hospital with covid, more people in hospital with covid, and more people on mechanical ventilators, than we did at the same point 12 months ago. 12 months ago we were still extending restrictions of lockdown, not looking to open up, unsurprisingly.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

So even if people don't die of it, the wards will be filling, the ICU's will be filling, and people will be dying due to lack of care.

[Sandstorm]

So we have more people entering hospital with covid, more people in hospital with covid, and more people on mechanical ventilators, than we did at the same point 12 months ago. 12 months ago we were still extending restrictions of lockdown, not looking to open up, unsurprisingly.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

So even if people don't die of it, the wards will be filling, the ICU's will be filling, and people will be dying due to lack of care.

No surprise UK is back to bad leadership making bad decisions. One win of the vaccines can’t hide all the other cock-ups they continue to make.

[Uncle fester]

Can somebody explain something for me:

Does the vaccine stop the virus in it's tracks or does it simply ameliorate the symptoms.

I would imagine that, if it does the latter, then it should limit the damage to cells, which should make it more difficult to spread?

I'm just a little concerned that it simply masks the symptoms without seriously diminishing its ability to be contagious. Which would make it even more dangerous, especially in an unvaccinated population.

Am I overthinking this?

It depends on the variant. Assuming Delta, it's around 60% effective at preventing infection, and 95% effective at preventing hospitalisation. In that gap between the 60% and 95% you have a range from asymptomatic but possibly contagious, through to fully symptomatic but manageable at home.

Is there a risk that letting it spread will help create a new variant that bypasses our hard won vaccine protection?

[Biffer]

Can somebody explain something for me:

Does the vaccine stop the virus in it's tracks or does it simply ameliorate the symptoms.

I would imagine that, if it does the latter, then it should limit the damage to cells, which should make it more difficult to spread?

I'm just a little concerned that it simply masks the symptoms without seriously diminishing its ability to be contagious. Which would make it even more dangerous, especially in an unvaccinated population.

Am I overthinking this?

It depends on the variant. Assuming Delta, it's around 60% effective at preventing infection, and 95% effective at preventing hospitalisation. In that gap between the 60% and 95% you have a range from asymptomatic but possibly contagious, through to fully symptomatic but manageable at home.

Is there a risk that letting it spread will help create a new variant that bypasses our hard won vaccine protection?

Yes, although it won’t be a case of one variant bypasses vaccines. Successive variants will gradually erode the vaccine effectiveness.

[Tichtheid]

Yes, although it won’t be a case of one variant bypasses vaccines. Successive variants will gradually erode the vaccine effectiveness.

What sort of timescale are we looking at?

I guess really what I'm asking is do we have time to tweak the vaccines in order to keep ahead of the variants?

Though, and I'm thinking out loud now, I guess we have to react to variants rather than pre-empt them.
Will it be like what we do with flu, and try to guess what form the virus will take and we make the vaccines accordingly?

To be honest I haven't a scooby about this.

[Line6 HXFX]

English friends..
Wear a mask.
Walk, don't use public transport.
Don't go to pubs.
Do not fucking listen to Savid Javid or Boris or your idiot media and government.


If you can, whatever they are implementing in Wales, whatever Mark Drakeford is saying...just do that.

I know you think I hate you lot, that I am bigoted towards the English.. maybe I am, like litterally everyone else in earth...maybe I am just being portrayed that way...whatever..but this isn't football or rugby.
This is no game.

Your government are just f'king wrong'uns

[Calculon]

Yes, although it won’t be a case of one variant bypasses vaccines. Successive variants will gradually erode the vaccine effectiveness.

What sort of timescale are we looking at?

I guess really what I'm asking is do we have time to tweak the vaccines in order to keep ahead of the variants?

Though, and I'm thinking out loud now, I guess we have to react to variants rather than pre-empt them.
Will it be like what we do with flu, and try to guess what form the virus will take and we make the vaccines accordingly?

To be honest I haven't a scooby about this.

Well like flu we will have to accept a certain number of deaths and infections each year.

Although both are RNA viruses, coronavirus is pretty unique amongst them for having proofreading ability (it has to cos its massive compared to other rna viruses) so its genome is pretty stable and as I’ve mentioned before the same epitopes keep popping up in different variants, so researchers should have a good idea of which epitopes to target with vaccine development. There are also many different vaccines already being developed and not all target the same virus structure, so some vaccines will be less sensitive to changes in viral structure. In addition, our treatment of covid-19, including drugs used, has improved and will continue to improve.

Also worth repeating that most of the vaccines provide very high protection from severe disease caused by all of the variants. Flu vaccines by comparison are a lot less effective

[Biffer]

Yes, although it won’t be a case of one variant bypasses vaccines. Successive variants will gradually erode the vaccine effectiveness.

What sort of timescale are we looking at?

I guess really what I'm asking is do we have time to tweak the vaccines in order to keep ahead of the variants?

Though, and I'm thinking out loud now, I guess we have to react to variants rather than pre-empt them.
Will it be like what we do with flu, and try to guess what form the virus will take and we make the vaccines accordingly?

To be honest I haven't a scooby about this.

So far as I understand it, although someone more knowledgable will correct me, with flu you’re looking at substantially different strains, whereas here we’re looking at variants of one strain, and those variants are in many cases progressive. So the variants go Wild-alpha-beta-gamma-delta-eta-iota-kappa-lambda etc etc, wild being the original virus. Current vaccines are developed vs wild. If we develop a booster agains say beta, it’ll give us better protection against delta as it’s closer to it.

[Tichtheid]

So far as I understand it, although someone more knowledgable will correct me, with flu you’re looking at substantially different strains, whereas here we’re looking at variants of one strain, and those variants are in many cases progressive. So the variants go Wild-alpha-beta-gamma-delta-eta-iota-kappa-lambda etc etc, wild being the original virus. Current vaccines are developed vs wild. If we develop a booster agains say beta, it’ll give us better protection against delta as it’s closer to it.

Ah, good explanation, cheers.

[Tichtheid]

Well like flu we will have to accept a certain number of deaths and infections each year.

Although both are RNA viruses, coronavirus is pretty unique amongst them for having proofreading ability (it has to cos its massive compared to other rna viruses) so its genome is pretty stable and as I’ve mentioned before the same epitopes keep popping up in different variants, so researchers should have a good idea of which epitopes to target with vaccine development. There are also many different vaccines already being developed and not all target the same virus structure, so some vaccines will be less sensitive to changes in viral structure. In addition, our treatment of covid-19, including drugs used, has improved and will continue to improve.

Also worth repeating that most of the vaccines provide very high protection from severe disease caused by all of the variants. Flu vaccines by comparison are a lot less effective

another good explanation, thanks.

[Ovals]

So we have more people entering hospital with covid, more people in hospital with covid, and more people on mechanical ventilators, than we did at the same point 12 months ago. 12 months ago we were still extending restrictions of lockdown, not looking to open up, unsurprisingly.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

So even if people don't die of it, the wards will be filling, the ICU's will be filling, and people will be dying due to lack of care.

No surprise UK is back to bad leadership making bad decisions. One win of the vaccines can’t hide all the other cock-ups they continue to make.

This ^

Our Government has been pretty useless and their poor decision making has been bailed out by the success of the vaccine programme. Removing the mask mandate just makes no sense at all.

Even with the 'link' being weakened - this huge growth in cases is going to be very bad for the economy - so many people having to miss work, school etc. and many people are certain to modify their behaviour and start avoiding the (indoor) places that are being opened up.

[Calculon]

What's the reasoning behind not mandating wearing a mask in enclosed public spaces? That seems premature to me.