Ahead of the end of lockdown restrictions in England on Monday (July 19), the government of Boris Johnson declared that it had hit its target of offering every adult in the country a Covid-19 vaccine. Popularly known as the Freedom Day, British Prime Minister Johnson has adopted a “big bang approach” in setting the targets prior to scrapping all legal restrictions.
The U.K. Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said a total of 81,959,398 doses of Covid vaccines have been administered – 46,227,101 people having received a first dose (87.8%) and 35,732,297 people received both doses (67.8%). Considering it took just eight months since the first vaccine was given, this can be considered an incredible achievement.
According to data from the Public Health England (PHE), Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalisation from the Delta variant, the Coronavirus mutation first identified in India. Another analysis from PHE and the University of Cambridge suggests vaccines have so far prevented an estimated 11.8 million infections and 37,000 deaths in England alone.
Data analysis also shows the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 96% effective while the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is 92% effective against hospitalisation after two doses. There was so much confidence that the British government says from August 16, fully vaccinated people will no longer be required to self-isolate – even if they are identified as a close contact of a positive Covid-19 case.
In fact, PM Johnson said Covid-19 would “become a virus that we learn to live with as we already do with flu.” Like Singapore, the world’s rich nations like the U.K. are beginning to accept that Covid is not going away, more than a year and a half since the Coronavirus pandemic. But unlike Singapore, Britain may be looking for trouble in its plan to ditch face mask and social distancing on Monday.
Except Wales, Denmark has slapped the United Kingdom with a travel restriction, putting the U.K. on its red list. Anyone travelling from the UK will have to produce a negative PCR test before boarding their flight, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or otherwise. Even travellers in transit are subjected to this test to prove their “travel worthiness”.
Two days ago (July 16), Britain’s daily Coronavirus cases reported more than 50,000 for the first time since January 15. Over the weekend, the daily infection rate in the U.K. remains high, with 54,674 new cases and 41 deaths recorded in the latest 24-hour period. Latest figures from swab tests suggest one in every 95 people has the virus in England – up from one in 160 in the previous week.
In Scotland, one in every 90 people has been infected, while in Northern Ireland it is one in 290 and in Wales one in 360. To make matters worse, the highly infectious Delta variant is responsible for almost every case in the U.K. Naturally, scientists around the world have criticized the Johnson administration’s plans to ease almost all Covid-19 restrictions, calling it dangerous for the entire planet.
Gathering at a virtual summit on Friday, more than 1,200 scientists backed a letter to the Lancet medical journal that has condemned the move as both dangerous and premature. Christina Pagel, director of the Clinical Operational Research Unit of London’s UCL, warned – “Because of our position as a global travel hub, any variant that becomes dominant in the U.K. will likely spread to the rest of the world.”
New Zealand, one of the most successful countries in suppressing the Coronavirus, but currently has a total 48 active “cases”, all of which were contributed by travellers entering the country, has also slammed the British government’s move as “completely unacceptable”. It argues that Johnson’s big bang approach based on herd immunity strategy had failed around the globe.
Even Britain’s closest ally, the U.S., was not impressed. William Haseltine, a U.S. virologist and chair and president of ACCESS Health International, told the panel at Friday’s summit – “What I fear is that some of the worst impulses in many of our states will follow the U.K. example.” He warned that vaccines alone would not bring an end to the pandemic.
Imperial College London epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, meanwhile, has warned that while the current wave of Coronavirus infections in the country would “almost inevitable” hit a record 100,000 within a week, it could also skyrocket to 200,000 new cases a day. It certainly didn’t help that England is also experiencing an unseasonable rise of “Norovirus”, the winter vomiting bug.
In what appeared to be a setback, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has tested positive for Coronavirus on Saturday, just hours before the Freedom Day. PM Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who initially had refused to self-isolate after close contact with Javid, have made a U-turn after criticism of double standards.
Even though the death toll has remained low in spite of the escalating daily cases to above 50,000, thanks largely to vaccines, what the experts fear is the hospital admissions, which could cripple the healthcare system. Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, has warned that Covid hospitalisations were doubling every three weeks and could hit “scary numbers” in future.
Cautioning that the U.K. is not out of the wood yet, Prof Whitty said – “I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast. We’ve still got 2,000 people in hospital and that number is increasing. If we double from 2,000 to 4,000 and from 4,000 to 8,000, and so on it doesn’t take many doubling times until you’re in very, very large numbers indeed.”
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- The Explosion Of Covid Delta Variant In The UK – How England Provides A Model Of Expectation To Other Countries
- Beware Of Indian “Double Mutant” Covid Variant – Israel Found Indian Strain Even Among People Already Vaccinated
- Questions Raised Over Pfizer’s Study – South African Covid-19 Variant Can “Break Through” Powerful Pfizer Vaccine
- EU Finally Admits AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine Can Cause Blood Clots – And UK Recommends Get Other Vaccines
- Sinopharm And Sinovac – Should You Trust Any Of These Chinese Covid-19 Vaccines?
- Forget UK’s Covid-19 Variant – This South African Coronavirus Variant Is Deadlier And Can Spread Even Faster
- Mistake Or Cheating? – AstraZeneca-Oxford Admits Manufacturing Error In Its Vaccine Effectiveness Results
- Moderna Reveals Covid Vaccine – Here’s How This 94.5% Effective Vaccine Differs From Pfizer’s Vaccine
- Coronavirus – Here’s How China Is Back To Normal While The U.S. And Europe Are Getting From Bad To Worse
- Russia Reveals “Sputnik V” – But Scientists Condemn The Coronavirus Vaccine As Risky, Dangerous & Could Backfire
- 3 Coronavirus Variants Discovered – Surprisingly, “Type-A” Found In Americans, Wuhan’s Type-B And Type-C In Europe
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July 18th, 2021 by financetwitter
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Comments
The case in the UK is a clear proof that vaccination is not the total solution to end the pandemic, it is only the partial protection against the virus. In fact vaccination becomes obsolete when people roam and mingle freely once vaccinated with the false confidence that they will not be affected anymore. Boris Johnson’s action of lifting the necessity of wearing the mask and allowing the people to freely mingle in large crowds and lifting all the restrictions and S.O.P too early is predictably inviting disaster and dangerous. Many governments in the West are also in the same predicament now due to their over-confidence.
It’s Britain begging for trouble as usual, the angmohs have barely dealt with their first wave of infection and now they are attempting “mass murder” as many medical experts would call the haphazard attempts at “herd immunity”.
But what does it mean for a far away country like Malaysia, with its own fcuking unbelievable mess?
Are we going to strike (and kill) for capitalism? The consequences of Covid lockdowns mean our industries and businesses will have to close, workforce laid off; unemployment, finding the funds to soften the blow on those unemployed even temporarily, let alone those who are affected when businesses, etc closed for good.
The truth with Britain is there is a terrifying fear, as always, of an uprising, an insurrection, that would even see those in power and those rich overthrown. The angmohs don’t give the brown stuff about confronting their gomen at all. That’s why Britain is staging all sorts of diversionary shows, like having that nonsensical showdown with the Russian navy, and soon with the Chinese navy.
That’s also why the ruling class in Britain is playing both ways with the public about masks, social distancing, and vaccination. These have divided the public and have distracted them for a good while. It is a damn if you do and damn if you don’t; extending or not the half-baked and half-hearted lockdowns.
Like Malaysia, Britain also has its headless chickens running around and making a big mess each time. Whatever the gomen does, it is met with opposition by the public.
Our folks are usually more docile, in fact, gutless, the public will not take action that would shake the gomen. But pushed just a bit more, they will.
And the gomen has pissed off just too many people with its incompetence, arrogance, sheer stupidity, and gross inability to do one single thing without creating another twenty messes.
This time the gomen has even pissed off those ketuanan is supposed to (theoretically and theatrically) look after or continue to con. The illusion of ketuanan has failed catastrophically, even if ketuanan “survives”, it is never going to be looked at the usual deluded way anymore, Ameen!
Well, not much point watching Boris, we have our own fcuking clowns in our fcuked up gomen with its 72 virgins with the proprietary virgin unused and unusable tauhu in their heads.
We have the same arseh*les in gomen disrespecting lockdown, social distancing, kalwat, etc, as the angmoh arseh*les. We’ve already got the same disease as the Brits, same (or better) stupidity, cluelessness, arrogance, laziness, what else could we wan?
Maybe we should sail an aircraft carrier to China,at least that would impress the ketuananese wan last time.
Maybe dumping those we can’t hospitalise in our good ship, the Ketuanan, may cut down the ugly numbers of those our gomen can’t save.
I am not particularly asking for any opinion, folks, but watch
what you say, our big bunch of fcuking retard arseh*le shit4brains are oversensitive about their utter lack of worth, and can turn the law on you for their inability and infantile inability of taking the heat from two candles as they fcuk themselves in the kitchen.
If you want to religiously submit to the super-fragile infantile egos in gomen, don’t wave a white or black flag.
The correct one is a Niamahaidin diarrhic colour wan.
Go, Malaysiaboleh, go!