Thread by @SGriffin_Lab

Well...this is nice. Apparently, it's just been deaths as usual this winter, obv this whole pandemic thing actually only affects other countries...

BBC News - Covid isolation laws set to end in England
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-604469…

Now, obviously our vaccines mean that many of us are no longer in anywhere near the danger from SARS2 that we once were, but when I see people dismiss it as a cold I really worry for some people's grip on reality...
For starters, the delta/omicron waves with all these cases that

apparently don't matter, have led to over 23k deaths just since the farcical short sighted "freedom day" in July.
That's about 20-25% of the D614G/alpha wave in 2020/21, which was effectively pre-vaccine.
It may not be such a scary "peak", but area under the curve HT @chrischirp

So, day to day we haven't seen 1000s of deaths, the NHS hasn't been completely overwhelmed by COVID alone, despite buckling under COVID plus everything else @danielgoyal
And, with some relief, many are now able to go about things pretty normally...albeit with a large number of

people still behaving responsibly to prevent SARS2 spreading. However, there have been over 5k deaths in 2022 so far...
Now, of course, deaths are by no means the only measure of clinical impact, or societal for that matter. Stays in hospital don't just stop affecting people on

discharge, and long COVID can affect adults and children alike, even after an otherwise unremarkable acute episode.
Of course things are better for most, but we need to ask ourselves what the impact really is for EVERYONE, rather than just what "government" consider a useful

yardstick. We also need to recognise that omicron and Delta were not merely allowed to fly free, which is essentially what's involved with this plan to live with, aka ignore COVID.
So, deaths at around a quarter of the jan 21 wave where vaccines were scarce and a lockdown was

obviously necessary because of yet another failure to act quickly. Is that really good enough as a successful implementation of a vaccine rollout using medicines with a 90%+ risk reduction vs severe disease? Hospitalisations were as high as spring 2020, but obv the deaths were

thankfully lower...
A lot of people take this as COVID having been defanged...but really?
Consider the following...
1. Yes, the CFR has been reduced significantly by vaccination, and omicron was thankfully less severe than delta on a case by case basis...this has led to the whole

"mild" narrative, which is ignorant as well as convenient. The impact of any disease is a function of its CFR x the number of people it infects. Hence, omicron has caused profound impact across the planet, see across the pond for example...however, anecdotal accounts belittle it,

risk assessments of likelihood of hospitalisation are lower (not in <18s btw), and we even hear nonsense about this being some kind of natural vaccine...🤦‍♂️
2. Plan B, late as it was, but more importantly people's behaviour in response to omicron cases had a considerable effect on

the wave, which had a peak of >240k recorded cases on a couple of days around New year. Unreliable as the dashboard now is, testing being canned combined with no isolation means awareness may not drive such a response in the future. Look at schools, where despite outdated 2020

studies spread clearly does happen and in large numbers. Siblings being sent in due to exemptions clearly fuelled more cases. Record hospitalisations in <18s followed...😥. Imagine taking the brakes off in society completely? A small % of a large number...
3. The UK mounted a

massive booster campaign, focusing on older and more vulnerable groups. But, this was necessary as prevalence was already out of control, and omicron augmented what would almost certainly have been a surge in delta over winter. Can we do this every winter, or every new VoC? Will

uptake be the same if testing and isolation is gone and this narrative of living with it continues? I would suggest that it would be difficult, at best...
4. Now, yes, as many of us have had 3, or more, vaccines, and so we should be developing excellent protection against severe

disease. For most, I expect that's true, but there are some problems here in the UK (restricting to here as the world needs a book, not a thread!). First, unlike eg Denmark, our childhood vaccines are way behind other countries, and the lack of enthusiasm for the 5+ this week

was just riculously uninspiring. Does announcing something as non-urgent make you want to grab with both hands, or just file under unnecessary? Uptake is poor, particularly in more deprived areas and amongst some ethnic groups. This means that schools will continue to drive cases

until vax programmes can catch up. Of course, recent inoculation is necessary to reduce transmission effectively, but vax AFTER a wave certainly helps nobody...🤦‍♂️

Ongoing prevalence is currently way too high. Breakthrough infection can make people unwell again, and cause long

C0VID...
This is what happens if vax programmes are both incomplete and unsupported by anything other than minimal additional measures. Also, high prevalence with partial vax is bad in terms of variants...
5. People that are clinically vulnerable through immunosuppression or

other reasons have, thanks to vaccines AND testing plus other measures, been able to start getting a semblance of normality back since otherwise shielding for most of 2020, and much of 21. However, now it is being proposed that the framework that allowed vaccines to liberate this

group, which is NOT small in number, is being removed. Testing being preserved for CEV may help access antivirals, but it's everyone ELSE testing that allows them to avoid exposure in the first place...
6. Despite certain talking heads saying that SARS2 is endemic so it'll all be

fine now, we'll keep catching it, it's just a cold etc, please bear in mind that this is 💩. I've done endemicity threads, but TLDR, endemic = predictable and in balance, it ≠ benign. There's no way our population immunity is in balance with SARS2 evolution, we will see more VoC

that will cause surges, further affecting vulnerable groups, low vax populations (incl kids), and of course there's long COVID which @WHO keep telling us NOT to ignore. Again, vax is the solution here, but with kids vax so piecemeal I worry that @LongCovidKids will remain busy.

7. Despite the data apparently "looking good", there is no fathomable scientific reason underpinning this move, so there must be other motivation. This is not responsible, and I'm not surprised @CMO_England is silent. We are accepting, by current numbers, double the deaths from

pneumonia every year, but it will be ignored other than panicked vaccine boosters if a VoC rattles the sabre...when folks end up in hospital, its too late to catch up.
8. There is huge hope for the future, but requires effort and acceptance that it won't be 2019 for a while yet.