Obviously this mutation has a preference for London and the South East - and is more highly infectious than its predecessor.

Ambulances are having to queue at major hospitals, which now have over 20,000 Covid patients - with new admissions hourly.

Infections are now running at over 40,000 a day - and beds are now in very short supply. Drastic action is necessary - and inevitable.

You have highlighted an important point Alison. Why would a super infectious variant (not so new BTW it was found initially in Sept) appear to be so regionally distinct as opposed to equally spread across the UK?

One possibility is that the "new" variant happens to be prevalent in an area seeing increased infections for other reasons and causality is being assumed:

www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-the-new-v...-more-transmissible-

I would like to know more about what a "Covid patient" (apart from psychologically being a good description of most people in the UK...) is if you have data? I can't find any.

In particular how many:

- needed to attend hospital?
- attended hospital for a non C19 reason and were tested and found positive?
- contracted C19 when in hospital for something else?

I like your suggestion that we need to do something "drastic". Agreed.

As tiers and lockdowns are evidently not working do you have a suggestion?

Wyot wrote:
You have highlighted an important point Alison. Why would a super infectious variant (not so new BTW it was found initially in Sept) appear to be so regionally distinct as opposed to equally spread across the UK?

One possibility is that the "new" variant happens to be prevalent in an area seeing increased infections for other reasons and causality is being assumed:

www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-the-new-v...-more-transmissible-

I would like to know more about what a "Covid patient" (apart from psychologically being a good description of most people in the UK...) is if you have data? I can't find any.

In particular how many:

- needed to attend hospital?
- attended hospital for a non C19 reason and were tested and found positive?
- contracted C19 when in hospital for something else?

I like your suggestion that we need to do something "drastic". Agreed.

As tiers and lockdowns are evidently not working do you have a suggestion?

Isn't the reason it is concentrated in London because they were on a lower tier until recently, and most other places higher?

I'm not sure Honey, makes a kind of sense. More than "superspreader" mutant only terrorises the South East...!

Infections were always going to go up this time of year. And NHS capacity is not new news - just look at below from 2017 where we were at 99% bed capacity and panicking...

amp.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/07/...tter_impression=true

Wyot wrote:
do you have a suggestion?



Stay at Home - like the government says.

Alison wrote:
Wyot wrote:
do you have a suggestion?



Stay at Home - like the government says.

I've been doing this Alison but it doesn't seem to have achieved much and I am getting bored.

Alison wrote:
Wyot wrote:
do you have a suggestion?



Stay at Home - like the government says.

They are not saying stay at home though. (Yet)

People enjoy being told what do so much that they invent further masochistic rules for themselves like wearing masks in the open air, not travelling, and the imaginary one hour of exercise.

Perhaps tier 5 will actually involve implementing some of the rules that have been introduced. The Under 35s seem to be taken absolutely no notice whatsoever of any of the rules. hanging out together, driving in cars together and mixing in each other's households. What is the point.

robbiex wrote:
Perhaps tier 5 will actually involve implementing some of the rules that have been introduced. The Under 35s seem to be taken absolutely no notice whatsoever of any of the rules. hanging out together, driving in cars together and mixing in each other's households. What is the point.

My biggest regret was not going to see his shows back in the day.

I have a very good friend in her late 40s who is an NHS nurse.

2 months ago she spent 4 weeks isolating as she had Covid which she desribed as the most horrible version of Influenza like symptoms she has ever had.

When she finally returned to work in an NHS hospital she found her compatriots almost in despair, over-worked and often depressed by the sheer volume of work as Covid patients around them die.

Now she's had to leave after just 2 weeks as some pretty weird symptoms have returned including appalling lethargy that hits out of the blue and heart problems.

And that's under the "old" strain.

As I've said before, there's no focus on poor public compliance, just the government and scientists, but unless there's public compliance, no progress can be made. The media have failed shamefully in their job, because they simply will not bite the hand that feeds them and acknowledge that some members of the public are being idiotic.

If there'd been phone-in shows in the 1940s, maybe callers would have been moaning about blackouts: 'Why have I got to turn me light out? Where's the proof it does any good?? I'm not even convinced any planes are comin' over!'

5Live are the worst. They get endless callers moaning about restrictions as if they're there purely to cause grief, and not once do presenters dare to suggest they might not be needed if people had followed the previous guidelines. It's pathetic.

When, even now, you're getting masses of people going out 'for one last drink' before the new restrictions happen, and thus spreading the virus more rapidly than ever, why is there no criticism of the public? The ignorance on show is depressing.

All the discussion about poor compliance does for me is highlight the foolishness of a Government pretending they can control an airborne virus, and people for believing them when they say they can.

One of the reasons you can't is that you can't control 70 odd million people. Why are people acting so surprised and outraged?

When did such an utterly ridiculous notion become commonly accepted as achievable, and seen as a reasonable discussion in sane society?