Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
None of the above proves what I said about a later variant being more deadly than the first one wrong though. Covid is new and so predictions that it will gradually get milder come across a bit like wishful thinking to me. It may be right, but abandoning all restrictions so quickly seems a move driven by politics more than science - especially in the absence of info from the likes of Whitty and Valance as to why it is justified.

I’m sorry to bring Johnson up here, but I suppose the decision to end all restrictions may be driven by a realisation that he is such damaged goods to a significant proportion of the country that any move led by him towards more restrictions or a reintroduction of them would be a failure because many people will just do the opposite of what he tells us. Maybe by the time the next variant comes Johnson will have regained the trust of the British public sufficiently for what they are being asked to do to be more important than who’s asking them to do it, but I very much doubt it - the character of the man at the top will always be an issue under this PM I believe.
Let's go back to January 2020 when it kicked off in UK with two Chinese visitors in a hotel in York. A new virus, people had no natural protection to it ( no antibodies) it was deadly. Things have moved on in 2 years and while new variants may seem to have the potential to be more deadly when examined in the laboratory, we are now able to fight back from a position of strength...96% population have antibodies, vaccines, antivirals, steroids, overall better understanding of how to manage the virus etc.
The evidence indicates that transmission is easier but as individuals we can handle it better so the illness appears milder. I see no reason to believe that this will change. It's not wishful thinking it's what has happened to viruses in the past and Covid is highly unlikely to be different.
What does worry me is the ability of politicians to continue to impose a varying range of restrictions on our lives according to which part of the UK we live in, as if the virus itself acts differently in, for example Wales than it does in England, and their reluctance to let people get on with their lives and make their own choices about how they protect themselves against the virus.