Should we all lockdown again, infection rate is rising or should we shield the elderly and vunerable and support them financially while everyone else goes back to normality to save our economy.

[947EliseChalotte]

Covid is not going to disappear, we will be waiting years for a vaccine. How on earth are we / the economy suppose to carry on like this ?
Yabu I'm being unreasonable
Yanbu I'm being reasonable

There are many layers between total lockdown and back to normal.

Unfortunately there are many arseholes that are not prepared to tolerate any of the possible nuances in-between.

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow

Sweden all the way

Yes. I remember thinking back in the spring that lockdowns weren't a sustainable longterm solution & that the Swedish model might well turn out to be the 'least bad' approach for countries where the virus had already taken hold. I'm a liberal lefty Guardian-reader type though so kept very very quiet because that opinion was streng verboten back then - now I think it might be right, although we won't really know till the winter. I do think we can't just shut down huge swathes of our society indefinitely without causing great misery, emotionally, economically & socially.

At least the weather has been great! ☺️
Cannot imagine this happening in November/ December

Wish we knew the extent of herd immunity being established.
Why don’t we have testing available? 😔😔😔

The hard aspect of this will be the demographics. Basically the burdens of long-running strict restrictions (for example disrupted education, mass unemployment, the austerity which is inevitably coming to pay for all this) fall heaviest on the under-50s, especially on the vulnerable. The actual risk of Covid falls largely on the over-60s and especially over 70s.

Anthony Fauci has just told Congress today he thinks the US will have a vaccine by early 2021. This may be optimistic but there are several large scale, late-stage COVID trials underway with promising data so I think the idea that a vaccine is years off is unnecessarily pessimistic.

I don't think anyone, least of all this government, wants another national lockdown: the whole point of what's been announced in the North West and the delays today is to avoid that.

I get that its depressing news and this seems to be being drawn out longer and longer but I don't think its as bleak as you're painting it.

Also if the infection rate is ticking up again it may not do too much harm to instil a bit of common sense in peope and remind them that this ain't over yet.

Yabu I'm being unreasonable
Yanbu I'm being reasonable

No shit.

Now we have a greater understanding, I think that people need to start taking responsibility for themselves. It’s unfair to keep vulnerable people essentially locked up.
We know this virus is not going away anytime soon, however there are still a lot of people acting irresponsibly. Until this changes we stand no chance of moving forward.

Basically the burdens of long-running strict restrictions (for example disrupted education, mass unemployment, the austerity which is inevitably coming to pay for all this) fall heaviest on the under-50s, especially on the vulnerable. The actual risk of Covid falls largely on the over-60s and especially over 70s.

Long Covid doesn't seem to differentiate between elderly and younger patients in the same way.

And the burden of caring for sick elderly people tends to fall on younger people.

Not to mention that elderly people pick up a lot of the childcare in this country: if they are dead or chronically ill they cannot do this.

I think people have a rather rosy view that if we just accept the death of some other people, this country can go back to normal again. A country where large sections of the population are chronically ill or require rehabilitation isn't normal. A country which has just lost a large proportion of its childcare and its volunteers isn't normal either.

None of it makes any sense to me whilst the borders are still open

Millions of " vulnerable" are workers or carers. Who is going to do all that work? Our neighbour is a cancer consultant and falls into the vulnerable category - he'd be a massive loss if he was locked inside at home. Do you know how many teachers/nurses etc fall into the vulnerable category?

Rather than shielding the elderly and vulnerable, how about the younger ones actually act responsibly and follow social distancing rules, not attending large gatherings, etc? The only people I've seen not wearing masks in shops are 20/30 year olds. Around our village it's the 20/30 year olds having house parties.

I don’t get your yabu etc you have an or in the title

Local lockdowns if anything but if LAs can’t find it they will be limited

I think a key thing that would help would be a really assertive policy for preventing spread in care homes - the UK's dispropotionate death rate is largely due to care home deaths. They need to plan something like removing people residents who test positive ASAP to a Nightingale Hospital or something, testing everyone in the home and again, removing anyone with a positive test and so on.

They need to allow proper sick leave for care workers and guarantee people won't lose jobs for taking it. Maybe they need to find ways to employ more people who are out of work helping in homes who are attached just to the one site, so they're not going from place to place, and again, allowing sick leave so people don't come in when ill.

I think everyone who can work from home and businesses where it working out OK should continue until such a time as COVID is no longer a significant threat, especially if people can only reach them by public transport (I work at such a location) - there's just no need to shove millions of people on buses, tubes and trains if they don't have to go on them to work.

Sadly I don't see that we can fully open restaurants, or viably open entertainment venues safely, which really worries me for the arts that are often barely surviving even now and I dearly love music, opera and theatre.

there are many more consequences to infection than death

I know plenty of middle aged people that are alive but have been hit hard. Every single one is signed out of work. This has a huge impact on economy, people's health treatment. education, etc

Can we stop this silliness of only considering death, please?

I think come Autumn/Winter those who are currently enjoying constant meals out, pub piss ups and hair appointments are going to be in for a nasty shock.

The lockdown already completely ruined my livelihood and has turned me into a depressed, jobless recluse so couldn’t give a shit about another one at this point

Can we stop this silliness of thinking it's possible to protect the vulnerable and not restrict other people and have a thriving economy?

Can we stop this silliness of blaming lockdown and restrictions for the economic problems that a pandemic causes no matter what you do or don't do about it?

Can we stop the silliness that suggests that hospitals would not be overwhelmed

If you want to protect the economy you do it by protecting lives at the same time

I don't think it's fair to expect the vulnerable (old, sick etc) to lockdown/shield indefinitely. But neither do I think it's feasible to close things down and destroy the economy. But unless we individually take some responsibility for changing our behaviour , one of these things will have to happen this winter. Or tens of thousands more people will die.

So I do think it's reasonable to expect grown people to take simple precautions like social distancing, no meeting in large groups, hand washing and wearing masks etc. Is this really so hard?

Why wouid you shield the elderly?

They haven't been shielded so far.

Shielding (up to yesterday) had no age criteria at all, it had been for the exceptionally medically vulnerable of all ages.

They need to get all education settings in line first.
Make sure all schools are on the same page. Provide all dc with equipment they need to learn from home and provide proper lessons at home.
Proper following up on vulnerable dc. Support for dc with sen.

We cannot write off this next generation and with proper provisions in place for any local or national lock downs will make it easier for parents and children and everyone.

There is no definitive science on children yet and schools are and will be major mixing grounds.
I can't see how the NHS will cope at all this winter. It never copes with flu season... How on earth will it cope?. Stay at home, save the NHS was only... Working because we had unseasonably hot weather in March and April... As well as lock down.

It's going to be utter carnage come November and I pray, whatever they did wrong at the top, they address in time for winter.

There are more than 160 coronavirus vaccines in development around the world. Six of them are already in stage 3 trials:

www.newscientist.com/article/2250084-coronavirus-vaccine-hope-rises-after-a-flurry-of-positive-results/#ixzz6TrhTTbTp

Fauci says he is optimistic there will be a vaccine as early as the end of the year, several other experts are optimistic about a 6 month to 1 year timescale.

The elderly and those who are at greater risk of covid 19 amounts to around 40% of the UK population, it's impossible to isolate/ shield that amount of the population. There are also (as others have mentioned) growing concerns about long term or even potentially permanent health complications from Covid 19 even in young people with no underlying conditions who only had a mild version of the disease:
www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists

Not sure Sweden is a great example, they currently have the 5th highest death rate per capita in the world - higher than the USA and Brazil.
mobile.twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1289342897695985671

"Going back to normality" won't "save our economy" it will result in increased outbreaks which will further harm the economy.

I don't know what the solution is.
We've both wfh throughout and this has hit my teens in key education years. I would prefer to carry on and shield those who need it.

I don't see how a lockdown will work.
But it's not as easy as saying those of us who are not 'vulnerable' should continue as normal, because even at a basic level this will still impact the NHS if healthy people are still becoming victims of the virus.

We just need to be sensible and get on with life. Everyone has a different level of concern and it is NOT for Government to impose itself in the way it has.
And the media needs to shut up too - they are just promoting CoronaPhobia!

We just need to be sensible and get on with life. Everyone has a different level of concern and it is NOT for Government to impose itself in the way it has.

No one could dislike the present government more than I do. But the truth is that they are the ones who will be left having to sort out the mess if things go pear shapes. In other words, if we have another massive spike or if we find that larger and larger proportions of the population have to be taken out of the workforce and require long-term care.

At that point everybody will be shouting at the government to DO SOMETHING.

I find it highly unlikely that the people who are now saying it's their right to decide their level of concern will do a Captain Oates and nobly tiptoe out into the night so as not to be a burden on resources. Nor will they be able to prevent that any loss of their labour will affect the economy.

If we do want things to go as smoothly as possible, with minimum effect on the economy, then we all need to do our best to avoid spreading infection. Masks, social distancing, careful planning of what can open and what cannot, a general sense that we need to work together on this one.

@Kazzyhoward unfortunately until quite a few of them get long term Covid, so a lot of them know of someone in their age group who has it, they will continue to think they are invincible.

Why do we need to support them financially? Most of them are drawing their pensions and that wasn't effected during lockdown