Ah, he's now realised what I meant about moving the goalposts again.

After a series of exchanges referencing "...the vaccinated healthcare worker versus the unvaccinated healthcare worker" multiple times, multiple responses refer yet again to the evidence that unvaccinated are infectious for longer, so more likely to pass it on over a longer period, and more likely to pass on a higher load.

Clearly everyone else recognises that both unvaccinated and vaccinated can pass it on but one is more likely to than the other. And we still get...
Still not getting it.
Then the goalposts move.
. Ah, so it's not vaccinated vs unvaccinated anymore, now it's suddenly vaccinated vs a group of people who might just include those unvaccinated for whatever reason; choosing not to be vaccinated for whatever reason, those who 'recovered' from covid and for whom very limited research suggested for a short period that their natural immunity might be comparable to the good work of the vaccine but nothing to suggest it was as good as a series of vaccinations.

I get it, it appears that you don't. Perhaps you missed the lesson on Venn diagrams when you were at school.

As I said above, it is becoming more and more moot as jurisdictions are moving on.

If you pay attention to what politicians have said, at least in Ontario, vaccination requirements have always meant to be a temporary exemption to the shutdowns to access certain things, and that they would eventually be lifted. So, being unvaccinated is not prohibited, but just quite inconvenient if you actually, you know, want to have a life, or travel.

The removal of the "covid passport" system does not mean that vaccination won't be required to do things like travel, or work for certain employers. So we are likely to continue to see vaccination requirements in certain areas, it just won't be as pervasive as it's been from Sept. '21 until now.

Unless you live here in BC where our so called expert firmly believes in the vax passports and vax mandates and is showing no signs of any major changes to our restrictions. They have instead continued to force a huge list of workers who are in healthcare to get vaccinated or lose their jobs as from next month. This list includes many more than just care home and hospital workers. Here in the Interior health region we have lost 900 staff due to the mandate and now massive staff shortages due to sickness as well leading them to tell us all how overwhelmed our healthcare system is and how our local hospital is at 115% with hundreds of surgeries cancelled. Unlike England where they decided losing staff due to mandated vax wasn't an option here in BC it seems we are going to continue to run the blame on the unvaccinated and continue with our divided society whereby if you don't support the vax you are lowest of the low and should be ashamed. It's possible our great leader agrees with all this but not sure which rock he is hiding under this week?

England is going to remove self-isolation requirement for those with confirmed Covid. Not sure when, a couple of weeks I think. The general reaction of the scientists is that this policy is premature. A high vaccination and immunity rate will protect most, but it's yet another gamble (on lives). Scotland & Wales are do far taking a more cautious approach on social restriction.

This is one of the few things Boris has got right, if we waited for the scientific community to agree on this we'd simply never lift restrictions.

It's certainly a political rather than scientific decision. Let's hope he has got it right.

Hopefully Ontario will follow suit, and it seems like Trudeau and Tam are considering lifting pre- and post-arrival testing at the border, so travel should return to what it was like in Jul/Aug 2021 at least.

Is it known how many people in the UK have yet to catch the virus? In light of the recent numbers of cases, combined with the numbers in the last 2 years, it can't be that many.

I haven't seen anything along those lines but Worldometer lists the UK as having had 18.3m cases.
That suggests that from a population of 67.2m, 73% have not had it.

Of course it's possible that some of that 73% may have had it and not tested for it for whatever reason but it would have to be an awful lot for not many to have been uninfected.

Possibly but as this is a virus that lots of people have without knowing that they have it, it wouldn't surprise me that the number that are not vaccinated and have not had it is very low.

As you are likely aware, lots of those that are classed as being hospitalized as a result of Covid during the Omicron wave, were there for other reasons and the fact that they had it was discovered only after a mandatory test.

Certainly I've read about hospital covid patients who were admitted to hospital for non covid reasons but the whole tenor in the reports I've seen is of people getting covid from being in hospital rather than arriving with it.

Mind you, given the source - "British Prime Minister Boris Johnson even said last week that as many as 30% of people in hospital with COVID-19 actually become infected while hospitalised" - who knows what to believe

Quite.

It does appear that we are moving into a "we have to live with it" rather than the attitude that has been put forward up until this point of time (don't need to debate the merits of what has happened previously) and I would suggest that, in most western jurisdictions now, it appears sensible for everyone to take the risks they are willing to take.

Particularly in Canada, I don't believe that there can be many left that have not been vaxxed, that are going to and I believe that there are now good arguments that continuing to impose restrictions is likely to do more harm than good to society as a whole.

I still have a few reservations, particularly for New Brunswick where the daily death rate continues to match the daily infection rate of the first 18 months. While they are mostly in their 70s and older, I look at my fit as a fiddle mother in law at 83 and think that maybe 70 is not that old - especially as I'm coming up to 65 myself. It would be nice to know if these people had other conditions but the government doesn't tell us that citing privacy. I'd still like to know how the reporting of "a person in their 70s, two in their 80s and one in their 90s" having died, no other identifying details, doesn't break privacy rules but any reference to other conditions does. It's not hard to do it in a way that's informative but still maintains privacy. Just some reference to a % of weekly deaths having underlying health conditions would do it.

One good thing that would come of ending it all, there'd be no reason for "protests" and convoys. No more emboldening otherwise silent Trumper types.
Imagine moderate Canada going the same way as the US, politically.

In Alberta, it is possible to obtain figures by age, condition and vax status.

I appreciate that it is not ideal but the data from the UK suggests that the average age of those that died from covid was higher than the average age of death in the last 5 years. Extrapolating that, which I appreciate is not ideal, one can conclude that most that have died are elderly and with co-morbidities and a large number of the first deaths were as a result of poor systems to deal with those in care homes.

I maintain that, whether vaxxed or not, the under 60s have little risk of dying from the virus, particularly the current variant, and those at risk should be perfectly capable of lowering their risk to what they believe is acceptable.

From my dealings with clients, I know that families have been under huge pressure from the children not being at school and not being able to socialise with their peers and my youngest daughter has not been able to attend a single lecture in person at university, notwithstanding the fact that she will soon be at the halfway point of her degree. My other daughter has not been able to finish her degree as she requires to attend in person "labs" that are not being offered.

Aside from the effects of the virus to those that have caught it, it is having a huge effect upon those under 25.