Restrictions & Freedom

 What restrictions have we been under with Plan B? 

1. A bit of testing, which most don't do anymore anyway - hardly a loss of freedom. Quite the reverse - it gives you freedom; 
2. Self-isolating when testing positive, which can only be described as a sensible precaution and considering others and; 
3. Wearing a mask in public places, which doesn't restrict your freedom one iota, no matter the rubbish that's going around about speech development (blind children learn to speak at the same rate as sighted kids). It's not  anti-freedom, unless you have a weird view of what freedom is.

The issues around the above are;

1. Tests must be free. That's a bone of contention. £20 for a pack of LFTs is a lot for someone on benefits.
2. I can understand people not wanting to self-isolate if they don't get fully compensated for the time off - a valid argument, but against the interests of public health. They should be compensated in the same manner as previously, from day 1. The object of the exercise is to limit the spread, unless the government is heading for herd immunity, which it continually denies.
3. The Japanese wear masks in public when they have nothing more than the sniffles. It's considerate to others. There is no issue around this, except from the idiots who treat masks like suicide vests and couldn't give a toss about anyone but themselves.

Now we must return to 'normal' at some stage, but there are too many vested interests if the decision is left to government and their donors who, it has to be said, are more interested in money rolling in than the health of the public (and parties). This has been proven time after time over the last 2 years. 

Can someone illuminate me as to how Plan B affects keeping the money rolling in, especially as the government keeps crowing about the UK having the fastest growing economy in the G7 (which is currently untrue). Also tell me how the alleged freedoms that are infringed are greater than the mass extinction of freedoms that this government is presiding over with planned legislation? Not one of the Freedom Warriors seem the least bit concerned with those freedoms.

The underlying infection rate is still very high, higher than the 1st and 2nd waves, although hospitalisations and deaths are reducing dramatically. That's an accepted fact. However, the fact remains that the greater the pool of infected people, the greater the chance of yet another variant materialising from the vast petri dish that has been created. Variants are NOT necessarily less dangerous, as the armchair virologists keep insisting.

If there's a Red Alert for a storm, who do we leave it to to tell us the alert has gone down to Amber - the government or the forecasters? If the bank interest rates have to go up or down, who decides that - the government or the experts in the Bank of England? The latter of these was devolved to the Bank of England precisely because of a conflict of interests. Similarly, there's a conflict of interests between the Tory Party and their donors and them telling us to go back to normal. This should not be the case. I simply cannot trust our government - although that's been the case since the day Boris Johnson was inexplicably elected as our PM.

If we do return to normal, I'd prefer it if that was on the basis of a consensus within the medical and scientific community, which is lacking at present. 

According to a poll, only 17% of the population is in favour of dropping all 'restrictions', and I can guarantee the 12% (8m) who have co-morbidities that put them at risk are not among them. I can also guarantee that the 17% who want all restrictions dropped won't take any personal responsibility for others. Boris maintains we don't need laws to be considerate - who is he trying to fool - the masses walking around our local Tesco without masks?

If we do return to normal, I'd like there to be a plan in place - a solid plan - for the steps that will be taken if another variant of Covid, or some as yet unknown pathogen, appears out of nowhere. I don't want a situation like we had with Exercise Cygnus, a 3 day simulation of an outbreak of a pathogen, where lessons were learned but the report was shelved and never saw the light of day again. Nor another repeat of the incompetent recklessness that occurred at the start and throughout this pandemic.

Given the likelihood of another variant, and that the UK could feasibly be the centre of it this time, I'd also like to know how it will be detected, given testing is going to be massively reduced. It would seem that we would have little or no warning and the first sign would be an increase in deaths, by which time, under the proposed plans from Thursday, it will be too late to do anything. 

If we do return to normal, we need the inquiry into the pandemic to start immediately, not 2 years hence, when those responsible will be out of government. The lessons learned might be needed before then. The inquiry report has to be available before the next General Election - and it must be free from  government interference.