The UK response - Part II - read OP

9 million doses going out this week to help those in need.

To the person who doesn't think the Euros were a problem.

Look a Scotland, Huge spike, In fact, the biggest since the pandemic started and is now almost back to normal.

Then it spiked in England as they continued in the Euros.

Sometimes you can be blinded by the data but it's pretty obvious what caused this spike.

Same with the last ones with Autumn, Christmas and Eid.

Fair enough the football may not of helped but imagine all those people around the world who have been having a bad time for the last year and a half. even if that gave those people a bit of hope that things can get better was worth it.

What were the Irish youngsters doing, sat outside in the cold having a pint with a mask on, thinking one day we will be doing that. Imagine if the final was in Ireland, you would of had cardboard cut outs in the stadium and everyone on the pitch two metres apart with masks on. 🤣🤣🤣

Only twenty cases reported in Suffolk so far of people who attended Latitude festival last weekend, we'll know the bigger picture in a week's time of how many cases have come from it.

They're quoting the Japanese health minister. That's why the word is in quotes. 😄

You're as well talking to the wall here. Half-and-half isn't one for accepting any criticism of the UK's approach, never mind something easily provable and widely accepted as the provenance of the Kent-variant.

You've already been labelled a Brit-basher though, so I guess you could try accept that as confirmation of you being correct anyway. 😃

I'm in a pub tonight, celebrating my friends birthday, no social distancing or masks, no one asking for vaccination certs oranything. Life's back to normal thank feck.

85 million doses now been handed out

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

I know. Nobody says that variants can't evolve and spread when there are low infections and zero vaccinations; just that you optimise the conditions for the development, spread and dominance of vaccine-resistant variants by removing infection control restrictions at a time when half the population is vaccinated and half is not.

The argument, as I understand it, is:

(a) Having a large pool of unvaccinated people maximises the number of people who get infected. Since genetic variation occurs randomly, the more infected people there are the more variants will emerge. Many of these will be non-viable, or will be less well-adapted than the already prevalent variants; they won't survive or propagate. But it's the new variants that are more easily transmitted, or cause more severe disease, or both, that should worry us. And, the more variants that emerge, the greater the likelihood that a variant will emerge that possesses these characteristics, and that is resistant to the current vaccines.

(b) Having a large pool of vaccinated people means that vaccine-resistant variants will enjoy a darwinian advantage - the pool of people who can (a) catch, and (b) transmit vaccine-resistant covid variants will (if the population is 50% vaccinated) be twice as large as the pool of people who can catch nonresistant variants . So resistant variants will tend to spread more quickly and more widely than the nonresistant variants.

So, having 50% vaccinated and 50% unvaccinated is a lousy combination, and not the time at which to start dismantling infection control measures.

If you get to a point where it's, say, 90% vaccinated and 10% not (and if you get to this point before vaccine-resistant variants are widespread) that's a much safer place to be. In this situation only vaccine-resistant variants are ever likely to spread because, if you have a nonresistant variant, 90% of the people you come in contact with will be immune to it. But vaccine-resistant variants are less likely to emerge (or will emerge less frequently) because, with 90% of the population vaccinated and vaccine-resistant variants not yet prevalent, the total number of infected people will be small, and as a result the rate at which new variants emerge will be greatly reduced. This doesn't mean that a vaccine-resistant variant won't arise by mutation, but fewer of them will arise, and at a slower pace, and it will be easier to focus attention and resources to develop treatments and new vaccines that are effective against them.

Basically, on this view, you don't have enduring herd immunity until the great bulk of the population - well over 50% - are vaccinated with vaccines that are substantially effective against all endemic variants of the virus.

Looks like Friday's Freedom Day for Wales is still on track.

How do you mean ahead? If you mean % wise then that's not a fair comparison since their population is 13 times ours, so in real numbers they are way ahead of use. Not only that but they have lifted restrictions when it was thought risky to do so because of rising infections but weeks later it appears touch wood that has been a success and now we have the UK's experience to go on which is a benefit to us.