To wonder what the ‘sweeping new measures’ will be?

[Greatthumbsdown]

As covered widely in the media, Boris Johnson is now said to be considering ‘sweeping new measures’ for the whole UK, sooner rather than later. What do people think these will be? No mixing between households? Pubs closed at 10pm?

@DDiva

I dont get why everyone thinks we'll lock down at half term. If a strict lockdown is required I would have thought the timing is crucial and wouldn't just be slotted into the existing half term as that's 'convenient ' .

It's not sensible, but I think govt will be more likely to do it at half term. If govt were sensible they would have done partial face to face learning with smaller classes where possible and not advocated going back to offices where it wasn't necessary...oh and not fucked up testing.

So all this propaganda, these half-truths and deliberate misleading of facts that we are all being told. What is the governments end game here @gje943?

And not just our government, but governments across the world?

The advantage of locking down half term for the 2 weeks to cover the different timings is that it'll stop travel around the U.K.

Therefore not taking it from hotspots to low case areas or travelling to hot spot areas and bringing it back.

Also to stop lots of missing indoors during this time as weather is generally colder.

Well - that's what I think the motivation would be anyway.

But I'm still against a general national lockdown as we had before if some areas still have low cases. I'm for a national travel restriction like Wales had only travel for a certain mile radius.

It would need thinking about seriously though so people in really rural areas weren't "trapped" so to speak.

I was heavily pregnant when this whole thing kicked off back in March and my daughter was born a few days into the lockdown.. I was in tears everyday, so anxious that I felt suffocated and had panic/anxiety attacks.. Because I watched the news non stop.. Everyday was obsessed with the death toll... Terrified to leave the house.. Terrified every time my partner went to pick up essentials.. I needed my family desperately as a support system being a first time mum and couldn't have them... My mental health has declined since and hasn't really got better.. Add pnd to that and I've been in a right state.. The only thing that's got me through it is being able to see my family again.. Now they've taken that away....

It's destroying a lot of people's mental health... Old folk who are shielding and can't have that basic human contact, a hug, a touch of a loved one that people so badly need to survive. Yes, we have to protect each other and our loved ones... But there are soooo many inconsistencies that just don't add up. Like, why did they not make mask wearing mandatory in the Peak of the virus? Why in early July did they announce it become mandatory.... But not until the 24th?why not immediately. Why tell everyone to go eat out to help out... Sit amongst strangers without a mask... Oh but hang on now there's a rise and this is all your fault for doing that so.. Back in the house you go. Why is it OK to send children to school to mix with 200 kids but not go see thier grandma (who they've been seeing again the past few month) same as people going to work and mingling with colleagues... But they cant nip round to thier mums. Not all grandparents are old. My mums in her 50s. She's fit and healthy. I don't know if I'll be able to return to work after maternity because I won't have childcare.
Some things just don't add up. And I think instead of saying "stop winging, just get on with it and do as they say" we should be able to ask these questions and get answers without being shut down.

@ripples101

So all this propaganda, these half-truths and deliberate misleading of facts that we are all being told. What is the governments end game here *@gje943*?

And not just our government, but governments across the world?

I don’t know. They could just be testing the waters to see how easily we can be influenced/scared/controlled. The answer appears to be: VERY easily.

Explain why mainstream media is not questioning the lockdown. What possible reason could there be for that? BBC news just relays the government rules every night, acting as their mouthpiece.

@ninja

For those of you questioning that they might stop all socialising even outdoors ...

That's the rules where I am and has been for the last few weeks - and yes it's pretty shit especially for the kids and no most people are ignoring it

Where are you?

I hope there isn’t another lockdown. Mental health has already destroyed more lives than covid. Barely anyone is in intensive care. Covid is the 24th killer in England.

I worry about:
An even more dramatic North/South divide.
Even higher suicide rate.
Domestic abuse - people not being able to escape.
State school pupils falling behind.
Businesses shutting forever (especially in the North).
Loss of jobs and struggling to survive.

@gje943 I fucking hate this government and Johnson. So I see your critical thinking skills are working there too. But it is not a time to live a normal life - I tend to think a pandemic disease of still-unknown long-term effect that has killed tens of thousands of people is reason to suspend "normality". Everyone's normality is affected but the people who think the rules don't apply to them, that they are super-special speakers of truth who have lifted the veil, who want to carry on as "normal" are, yes, the definition of grotesquely selfish. Am I likely to "snitch" on a neighbour with seven people round? No. Would I think they are stupid, inconsiderate, unable to think beyond their own needs and wants? Yes.
If I was feeling generous, would I say that people prone to conspiracy theories about"freedom" and "control" are metabolising their own profound anxiety about the state of the world and their own powerlessness within it into paranoia, grand delusion and mulish, teenage defiance? Maybe. But right now I'm not feeling generous.

notanoctopus as from Tuesday we are being told we can't meet anyone on our house or garden - we can go to the pub though. We are North West

I agree with a lot of what you say @Redwine125. I also think something is not quite adding up. Positive tests have been rising very significantly in Scotland for many weeks and hospital numbers are only increasing slightly. I saw a tweet from an ICU dr yesterday who said he doesn’t count just a positive test as a positive case but only people who are actually ill. Yet it’s the “positive tests” included in the government figures. How many of them are actually ill with the virus at all?

People keep going on about “the scientists” but even they don’t agree. Robert Peston did a twitter thread today. He’s spoken to one epidemiologist who thinks it’s already too late to stop a second wave and we need to lockdown immediately. Another who thinks it won’t happen and that local lockdowns should keep local outbreaks under control. They aren’t both going to be right. But why do we assume the one with the worst case scenario is?

@lyralalala

The HT of DS2 and DD3's school is pushing to be allowed to carry out her original plan.

There's a large community centre on the grounds of the school that she wants to use to spread classes around more. There's also a stand alone gym building that was used for the KW bubble during early lockdown.

She wasn't allowed to borrow or hire the community centre (even though it's completely unused atm). It has two entrances, two sets of toilets and 6 rooms. She could house two completely self contained bubbles in that centre.

There's also another primary school less than 2 miles away (random village layouts) and the two HT's (and the staff) wanted to be allowed to work together, but the LA wouldn't hear of it.

Disgraceful

@gje943

Do you think Covid is real?

If you do, do you think governments have seized on the opportunity it has provided for them to see how easily they can control us, limit our freedoms, turn us against each other?

If you do think that, that you do think this is a test, then do you think that these restrictions to our freedoms, and their intent to control us won’t end when Covid-19 is no longer a threat?

Do you think that this is it now? Life has now changed forever?

And if you do think that, what do you think they are going to do with people like yourself who are adamant they can see the government for what they really are and what they really want?

@Bulblasagne

Forgive me but what on earth difference does 10pm mean!!

Personally I think they just need to thin us all out again, people who can work from home do, staggered school, sd is not possible with the full cohort in, go back to smaller house holds mixing.. Etc etc.

Thin things out but keep shops open, restaurants etc.

Agree

Cases in Scotland have been going up for at least 6 weeks. We keep getting told there’s a lag and there will be deaths. But they only count deaths within 28 days anyway. So even the figures we are getting might well be meaningless

There is a thread on here about laptops and teachers are saying they have been told by DfE to prepare online only learning from end of September in case schools have to shut.

I don’t know about shutting but we have been instructed by SLT to review/re-write ALL distance learning resources.
Deadline end of September.

I think the schools will stay open but may be break up early for half-term and have two weeks off instead of one.
Rising corona virus cases was bound to happen when we started opening up things. The virus is still with us, we just managed to suppress it for a while.
I do though think, the Government needs to take some kind of action now as the end of October will be too late.

@MadameBlobby I think you're spot on with that. There's so much conflicting I formation... You've got nurses coming on the TV saying they admit the deaths were inflated, and they counted nearly all deaths as covid even though half of them weren't. You've got people on social media backing that up saying "my uncle died of a heart attack but they've put the cause of death down as covid and won't remove it"... Then you've got professionals at both ends of the spectrum...some saying the tests are dodgy and given false positives.. And then following it with a load of scientific spiel about it and how they can back up thier claims.... Then at the other end other scientists arguing thier case with evidence to support what they say....

So who do we believe?

I just like to have an open mind and think... You know what... She makes a valid point.. But so does he... OK I can understand that... But I can also see that too...

[quote ripples101]@gje943

Do you think Covid is real?

If you do, do you think governments have seized on the opportunity it has provided for them to see how easily they can control us, limit our freedoms, turn us against each other?

If you do think that, that you do think this is a test, then do you think that these restrictions to our freedoms, and their intent to control us won’t end when Covid-19 is no longer a threat?

Do you think that this is it now? Life has now changed forever?

And if you do think that, what do you think they are going to do with people like yourself who are adamant they can see the government for what they really are and what they really want?[/quote]
I do believe the virus is real.

And yes I think our way of life has changed forever. We will never go back to how we were before. The longer this goes on, the most accustomed we become to the restrictions - you’ve seen it in this thread. People don’t really mind anymore.

How many people thought in March/April “this is only for a short while, it will all be dealt with by July and we’ll pretty much be back to normal”. Well we’re now in September with no end in sight and a very strong chance that Christmas will be cancelled.

I think some of you forget that not all of the people in the shielded group were 80+ with one foot in the grave.
I'm in that group - I've three children who cant go to school or beyond the garden gate if shielding comes back.
I will die if I get it but that doesn't seem to matter to some if you here.

I don't think anyone could have done this job any better or pleased the majority. Stop blaming Boris! He didn't bring the virus here or create it.

Wear your masks without whining, wash your hands and stay away from everyone unless It's essential.

'You've got nurses coming on the TV saying they admit the deaths were inflated, and they counted nearly all deaths as covid'

Which programme was this on?

The anti-dementor threads used to be really good, bit of perspective that it wasn't going to last forever and we'd all get through it somehow at a time when some people were predicting social distancing until the end of time. I was on them at the beginning and they were funny and helpful, then they went a bit weird so I drifted away. Checked back in on one of the threads a few weeks back and it was some woman saying "so I walked right through the hospital WITHOUT a muzzle!" and everyone cheering her on, and I thought yep, right decision.

QAnon are working their magic it seems...

@Smallereveryday I don't think it's right that you call people "conspiracy theorists" and say they are "brain dead"... I have a first- class degree and a masters degree.. I don't consider myself more intelligent than anyone else, but people are entitled to do thier own research outside of what the mainstream media are forcing on us, and form thier own opinion. I'm certainly not brain-dead.. I have a family member who's a nurse... She doesn't agree with my views and that's fine.. But she also doesn't berate me for thinking differently either.

@HeyBlaby I watched it on GMB first... But then there were other doctors etc speaking out about it saying it was true because they were treating all patients coming in as suspected covid.... Not saying its true.. Not saying it isn't... But its certainly conflicting information none the less. As I said before who do you believe?