Tuesday, February 22, 2022

UK to end all pandemic restrictions?

If so, that's amazing:

Some salient points for those too lazy to watch the video:

  • in UK, all legal pandemic restrictions end on Thursday (what does "legal" mean?)
  • in UK, about 1 in 25 people currently infected
  • expect cases to go up after restrictions are eased, but
  • natural immunity will happen faster as a result
  • of concern: the completely unvaccinated who are "naïve" to the virus
  • but risk is still small because about 98% of people have antibodies
  • everyone will be exposed to omicron regardless of what one does
  • it's time to see COVID risk as similar to that of other viruses (no shit)
  • "dread risk" = people overestimate the actual risk
  • COVID deaths per 1000 down to almost zero now
  • this is mostly because of heightened immunity in the population
  • legal duty to isolate after testing positive is being canceled
  • free mass testing to stop in UK from Apr 1
  • Boris Johnson: not declaring victory over COVID but learning to live with it
  • Johnson: "we can now complete the transition back to normality"
  • virus will continue to evolve over next couple years
  • no guarantee that future strains will be less severe? 
  • there probably is a guarantee thanks to better immune systems
  • routine contact tracing to end in UK
  • self-isolation has bad effect of slowing viral spread & therefore herd immunity
  • remaining testing to target the most vulnerable
  • this is all a big step to endemicity, which has to happen sooner or later

This is welcome news, but it's two years too late. People have been talking endemic for almost that long. Now: will other governments relinquish their death grip? US blue states?



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