Yes, everything I have seen from the government over the past week suggests to me that they have realised the vaccines are not working (I mean, just a casual glance at the graphs will show you that the cases and deaths have been slowly edging up over the past couple of months, while the vaccination rate is now hovering around 90% first dose, 80% second dose), and are hurriedly getting into 'damage limitation' mode. There are a few minor carrots and sticks left out, such as no quarantine from foreign travel and no need to isolate from close contact tracing, but it feels like a general shift in policy.
Shops seem to have quietly dropped any mask requirements - I tend to find that if the employees aren't wearing them, there's no reason for me to do so. If any other shoppers wearing a mask give me a funny look (or at least as best as I can tell), I give them a big, beaming, friendly (not smug) smile. My workplace still requires that we wear them when walking round the office, but not at our desks for some baffling reason, but I've again been playing the good sheep and not kicked up a fuss so as to keep my head below the parapet, as vaccines have only been mentioned in passing so far.
With Biden's announcement yesterday, I also get the feeling that Johnson is backing away from anything which could be seen to be following suit if things really kick off one way or another.
On a day-to-day basis, I am hearing of a lot of people dying. They tend to be in their mid 40s - 60s, and are dying from heart attacks, strokes, or sudden resurgences of cancer. Unprompted, people will also say to me "it wasn't corona, as they were vaccinated, but I don't if the vaccines could have caused it". Cracks are showing in the narrative, and the brick wall behind it can now be seen to be nothing more than chipboard.
I feel like mid-winter is when this will all really start to go south, much like it did last January. I've stopped riding my bicycle and minimised my travel generally for the moment to reduce my risks of having to go to hospital for any reason - I feel that even emergency care may not be there this winter.
Re: A significant crack in the vaccine mandate? Hopefully more to come
Shops seem to have quietly dropped any mask requirements - I tend to find that if the employees aren't wearing them, there's no reason for me to do so. If any other shoppers wearing a mask give me a funny look (or at least as best as I can tell), I give them a big, beaming, friendly (not smug) smile. My workplace still requires that we wear them when walking round the office, but not at our desks for some baffling reason, but I've again been playing the good sheep and not kicked up a fuss so as to keep my head below the parapet, as vaccines have only been mentioned in passing so far.
With Biden's announcement yesterday, I also get the feeling that Johnson is backing away from anything which could be seen to be following suit if things really kick off one way or another.
On a day-to-day basis, I am hearing of a lot of people dying. They tend to be in their mid 40s - 60s, and are dying from heart attacks, strokes, or sudden resurgences of cancer. Unprompted, people will also say to me "it wasn't corona, as they were vaccinated, but I don't if the vaccines could have caused it". Cracks are showing in the narrative, and the brick wall behind it can now be seen to be nothing more than chipboard.
I feel like mid-winter is when this will all really start to go south, much like it did last January. I've stopped riding my bicycle and minimised my travel generally for the moment to reduce my risks of having to go to hospital for any reason - I feel that even emergency care may not be there this winter.
From a town not too far from the Midlands.