(New thread, as the old one, with 300+ comments, hard to navigate).
BBC finally taking the new surge in COVID cases seriously. A little (well, a lot) too late, alas, since nobody seems to have got the message yet. The Boris Johnson effect - clown heads in the sand.
This report went up an hour ago, reporting a rapid UK rise in cases & hospitalisations. This has a knock-on effect on others in hospital, and on the NHS in general, of course.
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/94f9b9_1bd9d28feb604b848baeae20aa1faa57~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_144,h_88,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/94f9b9_1bd9d28feb604b848baeae20aa1faa57~mv2.jpg)
Another BBC piece, this one by James Gallagher, their 'Health and science correspondent'. He'd earlier bought into Boris Johnson's "herd immunity" type line - playing down long-term worries, assuming everyone would get enough immunity that it would fizzle out and become as harmless as a cold, population-wide.
At least he now admits that was wrong. "BA.4 and BA.5 can 'substantially escape' the protection from either vaccination or infection. A study in Science also showed the original Omicron was like a 'stealth virus' that left limited protection if you came across Omicron again."
Key line from the article: "There is no political appetite to return to any restrictions." Well, of course - there's no political appetite for anything other than winning votes & staying in power.