This.

It’s been bothering me for a week, and I was thinking about it more last night.

The NHS hasn’t been overwhelmed (yet).

But: we seem to have accepted an ongoing, albeit lower, infection and death toll - and restrictions for tens of thousands who are “vulnerable” https://twitter.com/Sime0nStylites/status/1263201477104930818

As a country seem to be just kind of bumbling along - with still 300-400 daily deaths, and 2500 new infections.

And yet we’re accepting that “new normal” as just fine?

Millions of people are shielding indefinitely.

We appear to have no capable track-trace-exit strategy.

Yet in spite of that we’re pushing ahead with reopening - for people to go back to work, for schools to go back.

I do not for a moment discount cost to coming, and to health and well-being, of lockdown.

But we’re still in an ongoing crisis (& it could easily get worse again)

Was the lockdown, therefore, solely about protecting the NHS?

If so, we’re not even out of the woods on that. As “normal” service begins to resume, the extra capacity freed up in anticipation of a covid surge will be reduced. Another (smaller!) spike could still overwhelm

But it feels that there hasn’t been a real media and public conversation about the fact that reopening when you’re still dealing with 2500 new cases and 350 deaths per day… and millions are “shielding” - seems rather premature.