I think for some decisions makers that appears to be the thought process, but it’s unfortunately short sighted for 3 reasons
- its a breeding ground for ew variants
- unknown complications of long covid
- throwing to the wolves of the immunocompromised and people who have not been able to get vaccinated.
Point 1 is the same as flu.
Point 2 is fair but what needs to happen for that to be different?
Point 3 - what level of contagion is acceptable then? We’re not eradicating covid any time soon.
This isn’t black and white. The options are not strict-lock down vs covid is over, and it never has been, so this is about how we frame the current situation. That can and should be done way closer on the continuum to “this is still a pretty serious issue” than it is to current attitude of “we beat covid, now go lick a window”.
As was said up thread, the July 19th ‘freedom day’ shit is a purely political decision. It’s because Johnson and crew are getting pressure from the dribbling libertarian fucknuts on the backbenches to lift all restrictions, and they want to push the narrative that their vaccine rollout has beaten the virus.
But I agree on that! And I think many do! What many do not agree is the manner in the rush to open up everything in a seemingly uncontrolled manner.
I honestly dont care, I still think it’s incredibly careless and reckless. My reasons are:
a) Letting it rip through the population, even with those figures, hospitalization numbers will still be at an unacceptable level with a health service that simply doesn’t have the strength to cope with a 3rd wave. The staff are completely fucked off, and utterly shattered. Waiting lists for other treatments are increasing and simply not being tackled.
b) The risk of variants increases
c) Long Covid is increasingly becoming a thing and is simply being ignored by the government. More cases, however mild the symptoms are likely to translate to more people with Long Covid.
Overall this is Boris just throwing his arms up and deciding that its “done”. It isn’t done by any means and there’s a whole host of people and institutions that have to live with the impact of his poor decision making. To my knowledge other countries such as Israel are being more wary. The UK isn’t. Who is right? The country that head a peak death rate of under 0.72 per 100k or the one with a peak of over 1.85.
Even Chris Whitty says its reckless, the governments own medical adviser. Apparently Boris and Javid know better.
@Limiescouse has beaten me to it
I think it’s worth acknowledging what actually is due to change on 19 July. Currently, most places are pretty much open for business already. Things where you can’t control social distancing, there’s poor ventilation etc are not yet open (like nightclubs) and masks are required where people mix indoors.
Everything else is more or less operating as usual. This isn’t going from the Winter lock down to barely any restrictions at all, things have already been loosened quite a bit for some time now.
There’s still no loçgic being given to no longer take note of case numbers despite the mechanism in place to have those numbers is still in operation. Really strange position to take! 
Because the whole country could test positive for covid but if everyone’s asymptomatic what relevance is there?
Tell that to the relatives of those who do die!
Quite. That’s why it’s more important to ensure that the level of hospitalisations and deaths remain low/tolerable/acceptable/manageable or whatever other uncomfortable phrase and really the level of infections is irrelevant.
Nobody should really care if 50,000+ asymptomatic cases are being recorded every day. The focus should be on how many people are getting really ill.
… and how are you going to foresee that?
By monitoring the numbers of hospitalisations and deaths, as most countries have been doing for ages.
So on one hand we have
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Risk of new variants, and potentially a vaccine resistant strain, is greater if the virus is allowed to spread.
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Vulnerable people will be thrown under a bus.
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There is greater risk of long covid, which can damage people for the rest of their life
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The NHS cannot cope with a third wave of hospitalisations, even if it’s not as bad as the first two
On the other hand
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some people want to go clubbing
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people don’t like wearing masks.
It’s hardly Churchill pacing Whitehall all night deciding whether to sacrifice Coventry, is it?
Except, you’ve basically turned the population of the country into a giant living petridish to incubate a new strain of Covid.
That’s what living with covid entails. At least we currently have surveillance in place to identify new strains and outbreaks etc. In this regard probably, with Denmark, one of the best equipped in the world.
Only once they are hospitalised or dead! 
Umm…no, from the shit load of testing we’re doing combined with the world leading amount of genomic sequencing. This is picking up variants, at the point of infection, ALL THE TIME.