[Text/Observer Network Ju Feng] 30,000 new cases were confirmed a day, but the British people seem to have been inappropriate. After the curve of the epidemic has risen and fallen, and the city has been repeatedly blocked and opened, the Britons who shout "democracy and freedom above all else" have a new understanding of freedom.
The New York Times published an article on August 31 saying that "the British people have begun to measure the cost of freedom without fear of high infection rates."
Screenshot of the New York Times report
On the 22nd Premier League Chelsea vs Arsenal match, nearly 60,000 fans poured into London Emirates Stadium, while the musical "Cinderella" finally began its first performance in London's West End after several postponements due to the epidemic. The London Underground still requires passengers to wear masks, but half of them do not.
London, England, August 22, 21/22 Premier League Round 2 Arsenal vs Chelsea (Source: The Paper)
On the 29th, there were 32,937 new confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in the United Kingdom, and the hospital was under tremendous pressure. The data show that the protection of the vaccine weakens after a few months of vaccination.
The report said that the epidemic in the UK has entered a "weird new phase": the virus has not yet "turned the page", but the people have already "turned the page" first. Experts say the future of other (Western) countries can be glimpsed through the situation in the UK.
New confirmed cases curve in the UK (February 2020 – present) from The New York Times
Tim Spector, a professor of epidemiology at King's College London, said, "Our infection rate is really high, but we don't seem to care, and it looks like we're now starting to accept that this is the price of freedom." ”
According to the New York Times, this calm attitude of the British may stem in part from the fact that the infection rate, while high, is far from the level predicted when government officials unblocked it last month. It may also be because many Britons have been vaccinated, but there are fewer severe cases. There's also the possibility that everyone is tired — after 17 months of horrible headlines and a suffocating lockdown for so long.
Devi Sridhar, head of the Global Public Health Programme at the University of Edinburgh, said: "There's a feeling of finally being able to breathe and we can start looking for what's lost. It's really hard to get people not to congregate for a long time, especially when there's no solution. ”
Sridar also said that with nearly 80 per cent of adults fully vaccinated but the virus still raging, the UK may be a reference for other countries to "sustainably manage COVID-19". Many experts are now reluctant to make predictions because many of them proved wrong in July.
Fifth Beach on holiday in Newquay, UK on August 28 (Source: The Paper)
The number of new confirmed cases is no longer an important indicator, as the proportion of hospitalized patients has fallen much lower than in the early stages of the outbreak. The number of hospitalized patients on 24 August was 970, compared with 4,583 COVID-19 hospitalizations on 12 January, the peak of the previous outbreak.
Recently, however, both hospitalizations and mortality rates have risen. Admissions last week rose 6.7 percent from the previous week and deaths rose 12.3 percent. Doctors say the Universal Health Service (NHS) will be overwhelmed if a new round of COVID-19 patients are accepted.
In the past few weeks, the energy of the Johnson administration has been occupied by the hasty retreat in Afghanistan, and there has been little to say about the rise in hospitalizations or the epidemic situation. Thankfully, some pessimistic predictions have not yet been fulfilled, for which the government says their strategy has worked and that infections are manageable thanks to the success of vaccination programmes.
Critics, however, say 100 people die a day because of COVID-19 is not something to be proud of. And the UK is leading the way in vaccination rates, which means that the vaccine is gradually weakening for some vaccinators.
Philip Crossley, a resident of bradford, a city in the northern British city, said, "I wear masks in indoor public places, but I've noticed that a lot of people don't. Maybe it's not a big deal, but they can carry the virus. ”
Anti-lockdown demonstrator Simon Parry admitted he never wore a mask on public transport and no one asked him to. But he said" "People looked at me like I had killed my grandmother." ”
The New York Times said that for some Britons who oppose the blockade, "returning to normal" is not only happy, but it is long overdue. But still others worry that the contradiction between freedom and security may once again emerge.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced without authorization.