Mask wearing in shops and crowded places makes sense in winter regardless of covid. Is there a danger in over reliance on the vaccine? And it seems that we may need regular shots at a cost to the country of £1.2 billion for each round of boosters. It makes sense to limit the spread as much as possible. A 2 week lockdown would seem prudent at the moment whilst schools are closed anyway. In our climate meeting up means meeting inside for most of the time
Then the international solution – we are not safe until we are all safe! If the Omicron variant originated in South Africa before spreading rapidly around the globe we need to do more to vaccinate as many as we can. It is still interesting that parts of Africa have much lower rates of infection. It has been postulated that their exposure to higher rates of infection from a variety of other virus’ may have led to greater efficiency of their immune systems. Or maybe we should not wear masks and give our immune systems some practice? The waiver of intellectual property rights to the vaccine (backed by USA, Australia and NZ) makes sense but is opposed by UK and EU and Switzerland. Surely there is no moral argument here? The companies have already made billions more than they would normally do.