Love Kate Andrews plea for sanity. Fraser has a disconcerting "detachment" that belies a certain paranoia and over cautious bordering on "Stockholm Syndrome."
I disagree, but he has fallen into the “just in case” wet blanket trap. What he says is true, science changes as new data becomes available. But, the only people that are realistically in danger are those that have refused the vaccine, which is their choice, so fuck them. That includes me too.
I'm on Kate's side. I think Fraser is mistaken when he says the public lacks confidence. The reason I don't go out to restaurants anymore is that I hate the masks and the social distancing. I'm not afraid of coronavirus. I want my freedoms back! The exit wave of infections is inevitable so the only question is do you want it in the Summer or in the Autumn. From a health point of view it's clearly better to have it sooner rather than later. People's immune systems are relatively weak in Autumn. Delaying the reopening makes no sense.
Fraser Nelson obviously isn't just about to bankrupt due to these restrictions & hasn't had his business / income decimated due to no fault of his own over the last 16 months - I also bet that he doesn't have a bounce back loan that now needs to be repaid, whilst being in a far worse financial position than a year ago! So to use an expression of the moment - 'Jog on and go bake some banana bread!'
On the day this is published, the infection rate as recorded by the ZOE study is already falling; sharply. There is also a disconnect between positive tests - which are misrepresented as ‘infections’ - and serious illness leading to hospitalisation. The most recent figure I’ve heard, is that 20 people in the entire south west of England are being treated for COVID. The daily death toll for COVID is around 1% of the total. Every delay in normality will result in more deaths from treatable diseases and suicide. With the reduction in activity I see, more people are heading towards diseases like diabetes and generally reduced fitness levels, that make fighting off respiratory diseases harder. We are not going to ‘beat’ COVID, we have to live with it, just like seasonal flu. We must, technically, be at or very close to herd immunity. So there is no real reason, other than timidity, for continuing the charade of lockdowns.
@David Ward well, the graph on the front page of the app, which goes up to today, is clearly dropping and has been for a while. Regardless of the pointless obsession with infections, the NHS is not overwhelmed or anywhere near. It is also the case that at every point where the government has made a decision, it is taken too late and whatever they insist everyone else do, it has made little or no difference to the outcome. Infections were falling before the first lockdown and the lockdown after new year was also started on a falling curve. The government use the discovery of 'variants' to justify what generally turns out to be unnecessary restrictions for 'variants' that are found to be unproblematic.
@David Ward as far as I am concerned, the government and its' timid SAGE group are only concerned that not one single death could possibly be attributed to them. They have the spine of a slug and their decisions will be paid for into the next century. Lockdowns are not a cost free option.
Fraser you are so wrong.. No one will be taking any notice of being "Pinged". "Get pinged stay at home" you must be joking. Everyone is ignoring it. Most people have already taken the decision that this epedemic is over. Its over when we say it is and many, many, many people think the same. When we stop testing anything with a pulse there will be no cases to panic about.
I don't care about "CASES". Only the vulnerable will be particularly negatively affected, and they ARE vaccinated. 80% of Brits have been vaccinated or have HAD the virus, so what's the fear of rampant infection (OMG!)?
How can a third wave be bigger than the ones before it when you have a combination of people who have had it recently and are now immune and people who are vaccinated? The Delta variant may be more infectious but surely a much smaller pool of people are now vulnerable. Kate makes some very good points about the lack of transparency from the government and their unwillingness to nail some targets down, though I do think this is entirely deliberate. They get to change the game, dictate the rules and keep score to suit themselves.
Is it really impossible to disagree with a journalist, yet be familiar enough with their work to know that, while they might be on the wrong side of an issue, they still are very good at what they do? This mentality of 'agree with me on everything or else' is really just the larvae stage of cancel culture.
What soul do you speak of Frazer? If you had one you would not be arguing for lockdown. The economic consequences we can already gauge are enough evidence to lift lockdown completely! Kate, you truly are a voice of pure reason! Love ya, lady x
It is OK for middle class, white collar workers, in North London to live their Covid lock down. It is another thing for working class people struggling in the service sector. Fraser enjoy for 5 star breakfast which is half empty, my heart is broken for you
Lockdown for me finishes on the 21st of June ,as promised by the government. My last face mask posted to Boris Johnson today to enable him to pass it on to the illegal immigrants.
Fraser uses the word 'simply' all the time. "Restaurants are half empty because people 'simply' don't have the confidence to use them". NO Fraser. It is NOT as simple as that. It may also be because the fun and spontaneity has disappeared from the hospitality industry. Sit down, don't stroll over and have a chat, put your mask on, give us all your personal details etc etc etc. Fraser, the reasons are COMPLEX, NOT SIMPLE. The only thing that is simple is your powers of critical thinking.
Why are we still talking about cases? Surely it only matters if people are getting seriously ill and dying? Also, yes it’s only a couple more weeks, but how many times will it be only a couple more weeks? There are thousands of cases of measles, chicken pox etc but we don’t worry about them.
Katie asks the killer question directly to Fraser "what facts are they following - they won't tell us - they didn't tell us at press conference" Fraser avoids answering a crucial point.
Nice to see Katie annihilate Fraser on this. Has he lost his damn mind? Who cares about the number of cases of a disease that isn’t killing anyone? Fraser says we’re talking about two weeks. No, we’re not. This is never going to end. You’ll be having the same conversation this time next month.
I also loved the podcast last Saturday when they all were so astonished by their editor's view and piled on him. Cindy stepped in when not intending to speak.
Well spoken Kate! The Government are keeping their cards very close to their chest, no transparency about what the criteria actually are that would lead to the reduction of restrictions. Yes, what are the facts consistently being followed and observed to determine how much longer we have to remain emprisoned
I don't understand how some of the commentators are so scathing about this debate. It's great that the spectator can show this disagreement. Both views are widely and sincerely held. So let's air a mature debate. Otherwise we just get viewpoints silenced and this becomes an echo chamber. For what is worth, i agree with Kate. But good on Fraser for articulating a credible view.
How do we get 2 million + cases per day ? Who are all these people, given that 43m people have now been vaccinated ? Or is this their way of saying the vaccine doesn't work ? Most of these new cases must be kids, and we know they usually don't get very sick.
How many PCR cycles are run on these tests to consider it a positive result? How many of these infections are asymptomatic? At some point you're going to have to go outside.
Either Fraser knows things about this virus the rest of us do not or he needs some basic lessons in sorting Government and Sage spin combined with some basic virology 3 million infections a day really..... Kate has a sound understanding and its based on the lack of information and not what we are fed.
