Can you imagine a situation where London is effectively shut down?

[ElderAve]

Or Manchester, Birmingham? Deliberately by the government?

How bad would things have to be before those steps were taken? And how would the population respond?

TBH, I'm struggling with the compulsory quarantine of a few hundred people.

Do you think there is already "a plan"?

The recent drama Cobra on Sky 1 explores this theme after a solar flare causes a geothermal storm and wipes out power and shuts communications down across the country.

Do you think there is already "a plan"?
There are many plans, for different situations and at many different ‘levels’. These plans are being constantly reviewed and revised (and often rehearsed).

Oh, of course, I'm aware there are plans. I was wondering if one of them involves effectively closing a major city.

What a dream it would be! (Obviously this fictional scenario no one is dead or seriously ill, maybe it’s just a mass power cut or something!

TBH, I'm struggling with the compulsory quarantine of a few hundred people.

Why?

Have you not seen 28 Days Later?

Well because of our basic right to freedom user. On the one hand we're being told, there's only a very small risk, none if people aren't displaying symptoms and on the other we have 100s of people being denied the right to go about their lives and work.

Do you have the same issue with people who have mental capacity being forcibly detained because they have a mental illness? Diagnosed with a particular illness, lose your freedom. That affects vastly greater numbers of people for much longer periods in fairly appalling conditions.

If you accept a benchmark for forcible detention of people with particular illnesses there is always a risk that can be extended to people with other illnesses you no longer agree with dehumanising.

You mean like Wuhan? I think it would be harder for the UK to do that. Let's say the government closes the railways and the main roads. While many people would comply I think there'd be a lot of people using minor roads to dodge the containment. You want to block the minor roads as well? Well the police don't have the resources to do that. The army might, but martial law would be very unpopular. Unlike China, in Britain the government doesn't have the ability in place to censor people from spreading news or rumours.

Even in the case of Wuhan, advance announcement of the lockdown resulted in hundreds of thousands of people leaving while they still could - though this number may have been increased since the lockdown was two days before Chinese New Year.

There are lockdowns across the whole of Hubei province - which has the same population and a similar area as all of England! I can't imagine the UK being able to do the same.

I'm not completely comfortable with that either user, we know it's been abused in the past even if we don't believe that's happening now. The current situation is different though, people are being detained without any symptoms or diagnosis.

OP, is your concern that (a) this is a conspiracy to curtail civil rights or are you worried about (b) the lengths the government might go to to contain the virus?

What I want to ask is “is it time to start stockpiling tinned goods?”

Neither really, I'm just interested. I can't begin to imagine how the Chinese people are coping, but I guess they're more used to doing as they're told

I can't imagine compliance if a British government did the same, surely there'd be riots? Although I also can't imagine them trying. OTOH if it's necessary, maybe they should?

DS2 (adult) has been conversing with some of the people confined the cruise ship via Reddit and they seem remarkably OK with it, just bored.

Well, I reckon they wouldn't bother locking down a city - it's far simpler to shut down the whole island by grounding flights and shutting off the ports.

But that wouldn't help if the illness was already here Longines, we'd just be trying to contain it in (e.g.) Brighton.

It would help the rest of the world!

IS that what the plan would be then? To let it run its course in Britain but try and avoid letting it out to protect the rest of the world?

people are being detained without any symptoms or diagnosis

I think detained is a bit of an inflammatory word to use. Quarantine is more accurate.

Do you understand why they're being quarantined without any symptom or diagnosis though? On the face of it, if someone said to me 'so-and-so has been detained without any symptoms or diagnosis', i'd be a little alarmed. However, if you re-phrase it to make it relevant to this situation, 'so-and-so has just been flown back from China, which is the epicentre of a new viral outbreak, and has been quarantined in case of illness' it sounds less astonishing.

Semantics maybe, but wording and understanding of a situation is very important.

IS that what the plan would be then?

I mean, I'm not in charge.

But if it's an international decision, then that would probably be the sensible decision IMO.

We're a small island, after all. And as a PP says, it happened in 28 Days Later.

I'm going to have to watch 28 Days Later.

I hope it's on Netflix.

My ancestors were held for 3 days at the airport "in case of" certain diseases. No symptoms, just what they did back then. I can't ask for more info but now I'm wondering...

@Letsallscreamatthesistene I'm not really worried, I'm happy enough that "they" have the greater good at heart, things have just made me think.

I do wonder how we, as a country, would respond if wide scale quarantine was imposed.

Detained/quarantined, I'm not sure it makes much difference if you're the people being told you're not allowed to leave. And actually, no, I don't understand why they are quarantining people without symptoms, as we're being told it's spread through coughs and colds, so there's no risk until symptoms develop.

A lot of people local to me thought that the initial reason Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral as originally chosen as a quarantine facility was because it was on a peninsular so containment in a worst case scenario if the virus spread would be easier as it could be " "closed off"

I'm sure that the fact it is very close to a city with a respected School of Tropical medicine that contains a Faculty of Clinical Sciences and International Public Health was a big deciding factor too.

Now there is an additional quarantine facility in Milton Keynes it seems to have debunked the peninsular containment theory.

It is being reported in the media that a person currently in quarantine tried to leave the facility at Arrowe Park and had to be forcibly detained by the police. I'm not sure how true it is but today the government invoked new powers to stop the threat of walkouts by making it illegal for anyone in coronavirus quarantine to try and leave before they have been given the go-ahead by doctors.

Autumnrose

I would advise you don’t - it’s terrifying! The second one is even worse (I think it’s called 28 weeks later) it gave me nightmares for 28 weeks!

I don't understand why they are quarantining people without symptoms, as we're being told it's spread through coughs and colds, so there's no risk until symptoms develop.

Because once the symptoms appear, they could infect multiple people.

Because people are arseholes, hence why the person threatening to walk out during the quarantine period has caused the change in rules/laws.

Because people who develop symptoms cannot be trusted to quarantine themselves.

Because there will be people who believe it's all a fuss about nothing, it's all a devious plan by Big Pharma/The Government/The Lizard People, that faith in God will bring them through, that they can be the one who fulfills God's Will in bringing about the End Times/Vengeance with the disease/that if they are going to die, they're taking as many other people with them as they can (see deliberate infections of HIV for that one), that they will be taken to a concentration camp and exterminated to prevent spread, they will be separated from their partner/mother/children, etc, etc.

Because if it goes wild and does have catastrophic effects, fear will result in others attacking those who have been in contact or have symptoms.

Because the greater number of hosts means the greater number of opportunities for it to mutate.

Watch any zombie or 70s disease movie and you will get a full range of reasons why people cannot be trusted.

LOL at 28 week nightmare.

Don't see Ghost Stories on stage whatever you do....

I started watching COBRA but lost interest about 50 mins in!