Pirate's Cove

Here we go again

COVID in UK at record levels with almost 5 million infected

The prevalence of COVID-19 in the U.K. has reached record levels, with about 1 in 13 people estimated to be infected with the virus in the past week, latest figures from Britain’s official statistics agency showed.

Some 4.9 million people were estimated to have the coronavirus in the week ending March 26, up from 4.3 million recorded in the previous week, the Office for National Statistics said Friday, The latest surge is driven by the more transmissible omicron variant BA.2, which is the dominant variant across the U.K.

Hospitalizations and death rates are again rising, although the number of people dying with COVID-19 is still relatively low compared with earlier this year. Nonetheless, the latest estimates suggest that the steep climb in new infections since late February, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson scrapped all remaining coronavirus restrictions in England, continued well into March.

The figures came on the day the government ended free rapid COVID-19 tests for most people in England, under Johnson’s “living with COVID” plan. People who do not have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the coronavirus now need to pay for tests to find out if they are infected.

“The government’s ‘living with COVID’ strategy of removing any mitigations, isolation, free testing and a considerable slice of our surveillance amounts to nothing more than ignoring this virus going forwards,” said Stephen Griffin, associate professor at the University of Leeds’ medical school.

Masks didn’t work before, they won’t work now. Quite a few places had mask mandates when Delta and Omicron spiked, worse than the original COVID outbreak. Keeping testing around would certainly be helpful, as people would be more likely to go get one to know if they have COVID. Requiring isolation protocols would also be helpful, so people do not go to work, out in public, spreading it around. Otherwise, for everyone else, government and COVID Cultists need to leave us alone

“Such unchecked prevalence endangers the protection afforded by our vaccines,” he said. “Our vaccines are excellent, but they are not silver bullets and ought not to be left to bear the brunt of COVID in isolation.”

Not silver bullets? Huh. That’s the way they were portrayed. Anyhow, it’s expected that most people in the U.K. will get the BA.2 variant by the summer, and you know that that will probably happen in most 1st World nations, including America.

But, you know who really cares? Not many. The above is an AP article published in a Dayton, Ohio news outlet. Going to UK outlets, you find almost nothing about COVID and this spike. A year ago it would have been top of the page news. Now? BBC News and UK Guardian do not even mention it. Same with several others. The UK Daily Mail mentions, way down the page, that people are learning to live with it. Most are just over it. They do not want restrictions, shut downs, forced masking, being fired for refusing to take the vaccine, or anything else. No more showing your vaccination papers. I doubt many Americans will put up with anything if BA.2 hits the U.S.