[user104658]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

My brother reckons all this banning UK travel and harsher restrictions (which we're going to have announced tonight here) is all a ploy to make sure people comply and get vaccinated

I got eye-rolled at last night for posing a few conspiracy theories about the convenient timing of a lot of these new revelations . e.g. one of mine is that they didn't "suddenly" get worried about this new strain - they've been tracking this strain since September - what ACTUALLY happened was, they realised that the 5 day restrictions-free-for-all was an absolute disaster waiting to happen but couldn't just say "actually we've decided it's maybe not a good idea so now we're saying no" and thus needed a "new threat" to justify backpedaling on Christmas, and to scare people into compliance .

This theory hinges on what revelations come about this new strain after the Christmas and New Year period. If they come out with "actually it's not that much worse than the original strain after all" in early January then I'll be pretty convinced that this is what happened.

It's "interesting" that there are specific figures being quoted about "how much more infectious it is" despite a low sample size and there being no lab-confirmed details.

Also "interesting" that virologists from other countries are verifying that the strain being talked about is real, but noting that pockets of that strain haven't resulted in huge case surges in those areas (or at least not yet).

SUS

I don't really believe in coincidental timing.