Annoyed that its mostly people in safe jobs that are calling for full lockdown

[dogmad170]

Both mine and my husbands jobs are at severely at risk as we both work in hospitality. I am very swiftly losing patience with people in cushy jobs, where they can easily work from home and where there is little risk of redundancy calling for another full lockdown. Feel like we are being thrown to the wolves! Anyone in the same boat want to vent!

@Chuggington2 my business collapsed in April, hence why I’m now a sahp.

@StoneofDestiny

Channel your anger to the government who have mishandled this crisis from the start.

This ^^. You need to direct this to your MP

I'm an nhs nurse and also vehemently appose another lockdown. I have two dc GCSE years (one last year one this year).

We need to protect our vulnerable and elderly but the rest of us need to carry on with life, work & education as best we can.

I agree OP. Both my friends who are teachers have been harping on about wanting a circuit breaker so they have a longer half term. That is literally the only reason they want it.

I have a secure job, my dh as our main wage earner does not. I support a national lockdown for two weeks as it provides clarity. Everyone knows where they stand with no ambiguity. The government should provide support for those businesses who need to shut.
I have no idea what the rules are at the moment where we live. My dh received a text yesterday to say we were in a high area now but when we put our postcode in it said we were still medium. The test and trace fiasco has completely undermined public confidence in that system.

If we went into a full lockdown we could bring the numbers back down and then return to some normality after the two weeks albeit with sensible measures in place (social distancing, masks) which allow businesses to operate in a much more normal fashion thereby causing less disruption overall. We cannot completely control the spread of this virus but we can influence the impact.

Me and my husband are in secure jobs we can do from home and while we don't want another lockdown we would support one if it was deemed vital for public health. We'd also like to see a much better package of support put in place for those people and businesses most effected.

@midgebabe

If we want to keep the NHS open for all...preventing cancelled operations and staff burn out

Then shielding the vulnerable means completely isolating anyone over the age of 45 from anyone under that age , fully shielding anyone over 45

Yes, those people are not as a whole high risk, but they are sufficiently high risk that hospitals will be full of such people in a short space of time

So that means...we have to make choices about how their children are treated...are they made to home school and shield with their parents or do we take them into foster care?

How do we manage supermarkets ? I guess we have half the days staffed by the over 45 for the use of the over 45s and the other half of the time staffed by younger people for use by younger people?

What about schools ? Lots of teachers are over 45. I guess we just make bigger classes and make the over 45s redundant ?

And nurses and doctors? How do we manage there? Can we provide support to the over 45 on say 5 out of 7 days using only th older staff? What happens if you are 30 and need specialist surgery but the surgeon is 50? Do we let you suffer and die?

Calling everyone back to planet earth, 2020. Shielding the vulnerable does not work

Exactly, listening to the shouts of 'just shield the vulnerable' makes me want to stab myself in the eye - how can people just not see that that will fuck things too, and that even if we do that life won't be 'normal' for 'the young and healthy'.

Then we'll just have 'the young and healthy' bitching that schools are closed because there aren't enough staff, they can't see a doctor, the supermarkets don't have everything they want on the shelves etc because 'the vulnerable' aren't just people in care homes, they are people that are middle aged and those people are also needed for a functional society to operate.

I'm also curious to know how many net contributors would fall into that group, because will the 'young and the healthy' be able to make up for the lost taxes when everyone over 45 is locked away so that students can party without restriction and kids can go to soft play?

Lockdown is essentially the middle class secure people hiding away while the working class people bring them things

That pretty much sums it up!

Yip, i would also like to see better support for people whose jobs are not viable until the virus is properly controlled, for people whose jobs suffer during lockdowns, for people who need to self isolate

And yes, I would be prepared to pay higher taxes for that

@BillywilliamV

My job is as close to safe as any in the country, but I do feel for you and I do not want another lockdown!

same here - I don't want another lockdown and am sick to the back teeth of this government playing politics with this.

Anyone with 1/2 an ounce of intelligence knows that to have 1000's in hospitality and other industries losing their jobs will have a massive economic impact on everyone including those in safe jobs.

Perhaps I have an undiscovered Scottish heritage?

How ironic that I AM scottish! And belive you me things are no better up here, despite what the media are portraying.

I have a cushy wfh job and do not want a lock down. I've endured wfh to stop the lockdowns! I hope you realise most people are behind you.

Not sure about this, everywhere is drifting into Tier 2 or 3 in the coming weeks as nearly every area of the UK has increasing cases and those in Tier 3 are risking having hospitality (or at least bars) shut for months on end. At least with a short strict 2 week circuit breaker everyone knows where they are with them as long as businesses and salaries are fully compensated. At least bars would know they could open again and when. There is more chance of getting cases down if nearly everything is shut/working from home/online learning for 2 weeks than weeks and weeks of the Tier system which obviously won't make much difference as schools and work are mixing nearly as normal anyway.

HCP. I 'm worried about the winter.

Not sure I have another 3-4 months of a hard core rota left in me.
Working in PPE makes my already stressful job awful.

Due to screening/ isolation/ patient selection I get to deliver one half day a week of clinical care in normal PPE as opposed to "high risk" PPE (AGP PPE for anyone else is in the business). The difference is just awesome - I can speak to the team easily, I don't feel like I'm shouting all the time. The patients can mostly understand. I don't come how dying of thirst because I'm constantly humidifying a plastic respirator.

People have already been affected by the first shut down of the NHS but in order to catch up we need to coronavirus case load to stay manageable. That is not the case in the NW. There is no way we can deliver normal services (or normal-ish - we are doing 85% of our normal workload at the moment) and massively increase covid ITU provision. The staff involved are the same.

I lost a close family member as an indirect covid casualty - if they had been seen by a HCP face to face I think the outcome may have been different. Obviously the economy matters but if people won't stick to the rules about socialising then I think we need to have a lockdown.

Until the politicians themselves adhere to the rules then it is unreasonable for them to expect the population to do so. Has that former SNP MP resigned yet or is she still drawing her £80k salary and clocking up the type of pension the rest of us can only dream of?

The thing is the economy will also tank if we don't do all we can to stop the virus spreading. We don't yet know enough about the virus, how much immunity is built and how long lasting it is. Nor do we fully understand about the long term effects of covid on our health at all ages. If we carry on as we are then hospitals will be swamped and totally unsafe for people who need life saving treatment for other conditions meaning many people will die as a result of failing to impose further restrictions to stop the spread of the virus and not just from covid.

There is no easy answer and our government is doing very badly with its dilly-dalling, hodge podge strategy. It needs stope being ideological about public spending and accept that ongoing, massive public spending will be vital in the coming months and years and that as a result taxes must rise and the british people have to accept that also. Do what need to be done and protect every person and family from destitution, those of us with more will have to pay more. It is very much like a war time situation, we all need to pull togther to get through it.

Unfortunately for the past 40 years we have been told there is no such thing as society, that the immigrants, the poor, the disabled and so on are to blame. We've been endlessly divided and set at odds the pro brexit swivelled eyed loons vs the remoaners, the greedy boomers vs snowflake millenials and so on. Even this is another wedge to drive between us, anyone who sees the need for another lockdown is a smug well off middle class person who is happy to see poorer people suffer or anyone who wants things to just go back to normal is happy to see the old and vulnerable die. We have to stop allowing ourselves and our anxieties being exploited in this way by polemicists, politicians, the media and so on take a step back and see the bigger picture not just the small part that immediatley effects us as in the end we are all connected.

My job is safe and I'm still largely WFH, but I don't think another lockdown is the answer. The people who are already sticking to the rules will be the ones who suffer, but everyone else will just carry on living their best life with no regard for consequences. Hospitality businesses have done everything asked of them, but no amount of table service, number restrictions and early closing times will matter when folk are just going to each other's houses to carry on drinking.

A working track and trace system would have been able to properly pinpoint where new cases are coming from, but that's unlikely to happen any time soon.

You are definitely NBU with this. We're finsncially secure in the short to medium term but I come from a very working class background & saw the impact of long term unemployment growing up. I don't think people are fully grasping how insustainable this all is. If we have a 'short' lockdown now it won't be the last - cases will rise again & then what? Third time lucky? Fourth time?

Given the fact I work in an acute hospital I see myself as safe, but I sympathise with you. I don't think full lockdown is the answer either.

And the longer time goes on, the more compliance falls. We won't get spring-levels of compliance this time round, and there will be even less compliance come Lockdown No 3, which people will inevitably be demanding by Christmas. And then what? Lockdown 4? By Lockdown 4 furlough etc won' be happening because there'll be no money left for it.

Totally agree with OP. Close family member in events was thrown to the wolves back in March when place of work was transformed into a Nightingale hospital literally overnight... Now with the industry wrecked, no experience in anything else, 100 + job application failed, it does annoy me to hear mainly pensioners in our area calling for complete lockdown. They have guaranteed income, loads of our young people 20 to 30 do not, young families with mortgages desperate and worried. Sorry, not to have any answers, but yes, complete 100 per cent sympathy and agreement.

Absolutely agree with this. I have not heard of anyone who runs their own business screaming for another lockdown or more restrictions. It is invariably public sector workers or those who work from home. What really pisses me off is that most of the reasons that are used by those demanding another lockdown are purely selfish- such as
"I can work from home- my kids were fine with home schooling". This is whilst simultaneously accusing those who don't want any further restictions of being selfish and uncaring. It is easy to appear caring and selfless when the requirements to do so accord with your wants and desires. No consideration for anyone in a different situation. I am fucking sick of it.

Obviously the economy matters but if people won't stick to the rules about socialising then I think we need to have a lockdown.
This is the crux of matter.

There are people who are unable to make their own sensible judgements about what is an appropriate level of risk, and because of them, lockdowns become necessary and we all suffer the consequences of their actions. Those same people who think the magic "they" (by which they normally mean government) can sort it all out for them, when in fact "they" can't.

opinionatedfreak I know where you are coming from too.
There is a dichotomy now between those who work in the hospitals in close proximity to COVID and the general public. I believe this has become embedded now because hospitals are closed to anyone who doesn't need to be in them, they're only open to urgent patients and essential staff. So what I'm seeing is two distinct perspectives; there are those deeply stressed about their livelihoods, and there are those in the hospital who are seeing stressed services coming under even more pressure are numbers rise. I feel badly for our young population who are largely separated from any of the at risk groups and appear to be struggling to understand why social distancing applies to them. We need to nurture them too because they are our future.
I sympathise, and I'm so damn glad I am not in a position where I have to tell the population what to do.
I have no idea what the answer is.

I'm in a relatively safe job and do not support a lockdown. The indirect harms from lockdown far outweigh the harm from Covid. The governments (plural) and media have scared everyone to such an extend that people can't comprehend we could live with this virus and take simple measures to stop hospitals being overwhelmed this winter. We need to reset the narrative. There were 50,000 excess deaths in England and Wales in 2017-18 - we didn't lock down.
(www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2017to2018provisionaland2016to2017final)