At the end of the three weeks

[Changedname78]

What will happen? Obviously things will take a long time to go back to complete normality but will shops re open? Will people be able to go back to work ?

At the very least it will be extended by another week because we'll be in the middle of the Easter holidays and if the weather is decent they won't want a repeat of last weekend.

Beyond that, who knows. If they can get the antibody test that could make a big difference as almost well people with minor symptoms won't have to self-isolate which would help the NHS, rail/public transport and indeed schools.

The approach needs to be to reduce the contagion rate so the health system can cope whilst allowing low risk economic activity as and when it can be introduced until we have a vaccine

A vaccine could take weeks or years, we can't lock down until a vaccine is found. Finding out who is immune/has had it would be more significant I think.

Schools closed relatively late - that may mean that they reopen relatively early.

If businesses have to stay shut for 3 months +, a lot of them simply won't reopen.

I'm hoping for a change in attitudes towards what we have all taken for granted and recognise how privileged we are as a country.

The importance of how when a crisis like this happens, we rely solely on the most overlooked and underpaid, the charitable organisations, volunteers....they keep our ship afloat- I hope that becomes more recognised now, and our 'new normal'.

It won’t be twelve weeks of lock down, unless something goes badly wrong,

If we stay on the same trajectory as now, they are expecting the peak At Easter time, then it will tail down. So I think he might extend it for a week or two past that to be sure.

Scientists are dead against an extended lock down, they seem to feel it will lead to a resurgence. Imperial is strongly advising the government against it. They want social distancing in place instead and feel it is better,

It doesn’t mean that after the lock down is finished everything goes back to normal. I think all social venues will remain closed for the twelve weeks, but they will want all other companies to reopen, to get folks back to work, and schools to take those kids where the work can’t be done from home. They will also probably do something about the compensation folks are getting, put a stop to it, to ensure they basically aren’t paying for people to sit at home past the hospitality industry.

It will be a slow lift of restrictions from then till the twelve weeks, Ie end of June, with a careful eye on how it impacts the disease spread.

The thing is though, it’s all predictions, no one really knows. Scientists are using every bit of their extensive knowledge to predict it, but even they are saying it is a prediction.

@Taddda I really hope so too - but sadly I think any appreciation for doctors/nurses will be through virtue signalling only. If you were to ask everyone clapping yesterday whether they would be prepared to pay 10% more tax for the NHS, I bet you over half would say no. Clearly that's the case as most of the country voted for a party that consistently underfund public services.

After all the doctors/nurses either catch Covid19 or leave with PTSD, I doubt parents will be advising their children to go and work in the NHS for a noble and fulfilling career. They will be telling them to become lawyers and bankers as usual.

The only thing we can guarantee will happen at the end of the 3 weeks is that it’ll rain.

It’ll rain loads....

and we can’t even guarantee rain

Ha, Neil Ferguson needed to explain and clarify? That alone tells the world he messed-up.

He also botched H1N1 mortality as well, no? At what point do they get sacked and people stop paying them any heed?

“To be fair, the Imperial people are the some of the best infectious disease modellers on the planet,” Paul Hunter at the University of East Anglia, UK, told New Scientist last week. “But it is risky to put all your eggs in a single basket.”

Neil Ferguson, the man who brought down the economy in 2020

Didn't he say there would be hundreds of thousands of deaths from Swine Flu? And in the end there were about 400, with no lockdowns or social distancing.

@BeijingBikini Perhaps....but just maybe some of our younger volunteers WILL decide on this as their chosen path/career...as will some of the older who are retraining to provide immediate frontline support...potential career changer?

Of course it will have a negative impact on some, but not all- I remain optimistic.

....sometimes...

Nothing will be returning to normality yet. If all these rules were relaxed the numbers will spike again.

BeijingBikini

Didn't he say there would be hundreds of thousands of deaths from Swine Flu? And in the end there were about 400, with no lockdowns or social distancing.

Yes!!!

I think the death rate is vastly over-estimated because countries are only testing people who are ill, hospitalised or been in contact with someone who's ill, or come back from abroad. It's a biased sample because that's a sample of people way more likely to test positive. The death rate is out of people who have tested positive.

What they need to do is a postcode lottery, and test a random selection of 10,000 people - like an exit poll. Then you'd find out the prevalence and amount of people who are asymptomatic, and a more accurate death rate.

I agree with @bluntness100.

I don't think it'll be a full lockdown for 12 weeks as the economy cannot sustain it, they won't keep paying those who can't work indefinitely. The kids won't go back for a long while but people will start being allowed to return to work depending on the industry. To say a lockdown for 6 months or longer is just ridiculous, even Wuhan didn't have that and that was the epicentre. The way of life is not changed forever, it will get back to normality at some point

People were shouting for a lockdown on here last week, now apparently its completely detrimental to our entire way of life, blown out of proportion, inaccurate figures, 'false' scientific data......

At the end of the day, we currently have no choice but to follow 'the rules' government have laid out on this.

If anything could possibly be detrimental to peoples MH right now its stating were all doing this for the wrong reasons...if you were to look at it a little more harshly it may actually cause a revolt...

So when your posting, please remember, unless your an expert or fully qualified, to state your opinion is YOUR opinion, not fact.

What they need to do is a postcode lottery, and test a random selection of 10,000 people - like an exit poll. Then you'd find out the prevalence and amount of people who are asymptomatic, and a more accurate death rate.

This can't come soon enough. I presume the Oxford team have already mobilised this effort, but I think the test kits are not yet in hand.

I wonder how on earth it came to one man's assessment that determined the government should lock down the UK.

Maybe Johnson should hold you know, a press conference, and address these issues?

I think the death rate is vastly over-estimated because countries are only testing people who are ill, hospitalised or been in contact with someone who's ill, or come back from abroad.

I'm sure the WHO and the UK epidemiologists haven't thought of that. There have been papers out of China saying this stuff for month, the whole world is not replying on one model.

In South Korea they tested everyone within the area of the outbreak and had a death rate of 0.7%. South Korea has a very, very young population and good healthcare.

Most of the deaths in Italy, Spain and America come from one region, indeed a few cities. If the death rate was an error, you'd expect to see a concentrated outbreak looking like a bad flu season; do the pictures from Bergamo and Madrid look like that? New York alone is predicting it will need 3 times the number of ventilators the UK currently has.

Now imagine every region of the UK was like that, with no ability to move in resources from less affected areas.

What they need to do is a postcode lottery, and test a random selection of 10,000 people - like an exit poll.

That will happen as soon as we have enough of a reliable antibody test to see who has already had the disease.

Yes that's a very good point I was reading up about swine flu.. True, the actual number of recorded deaths was several hundred in the end but they had indeed feared it could be hundreds of thousands, yet none of these measures were put into place..
Anyway I'm just disappointed with the leaders of our country because we could have done better than this, I think. Hotter weather aside, it's almost embarrassing the way we have handled this compared to South Korea, Thailand, Germany etc.. Leaders could have acted much, much sooner and prevented a large number of these deaths.

I think it will continue beyond three weeks.

I don't pretend to know how long. Let's face it even the experts don't yet know. But I don't think three weeks will be sufficient. Hopefully enough people are now following the rules that, even if it continues, it doesn't have to become even more restricted.

Round here most - I don't appear to have seen anyone not doing so since last weekend - people seem to be following the rules.

Schools won’t reopen until September. I’m a teacher and was told not to expect to return before my mat leave begins in early July.

Lockdown who knows, I suspect at least 12 weeks.

And yes, I can't see schools reopening before September now. Though again, that's just me thinking out loud, and what as a school we are guessing at.

No one knows really though. Again, not even the experts know yet.

And certainly none of MN actually know yet either.

Shielding is for 12 weeks
Other at risk groups is 12 weeks
Furloughing is for 12 weeks (or 3 months)

At present anyway. Even they may well change.

It's not good to think too far ahead really though. Just take it day at a time or week at a time. It's generally better for people's mental health not to catastrophise too much.

That alone tells the world he messed-up

I think that’s a bit unfair to be honest. You need to predict reasonable worst case and prepare for it. Then amend as you move through it.

Because the cost to the human race of not preparing for worst case, and then encountering it doesn’t bare thinking about. They fully stated it was pessimistic and it was done under government parameters, as in the government wanted to know reasonable worst case and then to prepare for it.

They are now amending their modelling as we move through this. But imperial have been very clear they did the modelling purely based on what the government wanted to know, reasonable worst case, so as a country we could prepare.

Even the who was stating “don’t let this fire burn” and wanting lock down and huge measures, because no one knew. It was brand new. Now they are amending their views based on how it evolves, which is right.

But it’s very wrong to say “well we sorted it, it wasn’t so bad, so you fucked up”. That shows a massive understanding of what they were doing. Preparing for the worst and working towards the best. Which in my view was correct.

No one has messed up. And no one should be thinking because we prepared for the worst, and worked towards the best, that the worst could not have occured.

He also botched H1N1 mortality as well, no? At what point do they get sacked and people stop paying them any heed?

It's a NOVEL disease. That means NEW. Which means no one knows how it's going to play out.

Scientists are all drawing on their best information from years of work, and globally are in agreement that we should take the approach has been taken.

Of course the economy is equally important, but they are all just doing their best. Adjustments will be needed down the road.

Your statement is incredibly stupid.