To think lock down will be much longer than four weeks

[JudesBiggestFan]

Looking at the reality of where transmission takes places and what's actually been shut - there's no way this lockdown will be sufficient. At the end of four weeks schools will shut early for Christmas, when deaths reach a frighteningly high level.
Back in March we locked down when there had been 21 deaths only and it still took seven weeks of a full lockdown to reduce numbers to a level where anything was eased off. I know the Government won't want to scare people further at this point, but does anyone else agree?

This is how I think it’ll go;

4 week lockdown
Extended by 3 weeks
2 weeks ‘off’ and back to the Tiered system for Christmas / new year depending on rates at the time

Only my hypothesis of course.

For those saying lockdowns ‘don’t work’ - they are proven to break the chains of transmission. Although with schools not closed I think it will be much less effective than the March lockdown.

Of course nothing removes the virus but it effectively resets us and buys us another few months for the virus cases to build again.

I think we will have to ‘cycle’ like this until there’s a vaccine

I agree @BlueStethoscope and @PurpleDaisies I will be amazed if the Regs go through with an open ended date on them and the ability to make an extension without going through Parliament. I cant see the back benchers allowing that

And Keir Starmer certainly shouldnt either as a political move have it without an extension having to be put through by Parliament either. The government should not be having that kind of power right now.

The opposition should also be pushing for a decent tract and trace/testing and proper isolation system to be put in place for the next 4 weeks. Continuous extensions to this type of lockdown is not the way this should be handled.

I don’t for a moment believe the lockdown will be just 4 weeks, it will go on for much longer & schools/colleges/uni’s will end up closing I reckon.

@Youngatheart00 I dont think it is as much lockdowns dont work - they do and should be used as a good short term solution to get transmission down and break as you say the cycle

They should not be used though as the method of controlling the virus in the medium to longer term (or until a vaccine in the spring). That should be using the lockdown to reset and then having a decent system of controlling the virus by using testing/track and trace and proper decent quarantines (and proper rules people understand). That is what has been effective in other places.

But we just keep on using lockdowns because we dont have the competence to create a system that people stick too

The thing that gets me is the "until there's a vaccine", as if the week it's released we'll have 66 million people vaccinated.

Even when we get a vaccine, they will have to prioritise the order that different groups will get it, and there still probably won't be enough for everyone to get it in the first year. If it takes 3-4 months to give the flu vaccine to roughly 7m people a year, it would take over 2 years to vaccinate the entire country against covid.

I just don't think the vaccine is going to be the magic bullet everybody thinks it is.

@letmepeeinpeace

Lockdown has to happen urgently, this Thursday! Wth! Anyway, from now until Thursday some people will be cramming things in. Shops will be crazy, pubs and clubs busy. This will cause an increase in cases which won't occur for another 1-2 weeks. This will then mean lockdown extended. Some people have had enough, Liverpool is a prime example of that

Though some people will lock themselves down earlier.

Our house faces a main street leading to a park. I have seen not one pedestrian pass this morning and the road is much quieter too.

@Quartz2208 I agree with you entirely. The next ‘release’ from lockdown needs to be accompanied by a proper, functioning track and trace (and public compliance)

Of course we’ll come out in four weeks, into special new Tier 4/4+/whatever restrictions, and similar until April or so.

@Youngatheart00 yes and they are two very distinct problems

We dont have the competence to create a functioning system and even if we did do we have public compliance

4 weeks should be sufficient to if followed properly to get it down the the levels required for that to kick in

But it wont be and the longer term effects of that will just keep building up

I should hope not but they’ve made a billion other u-turns including this lockdown which Boris definitely didn’t want to do because the tier system would work so you’re probably right.

If it takes 3-4 months to give the flu vaccine to roughly 7m people a year, it would take over 2 years to vaccinate the entire country against covid.

They could speed it up if the vaccine could be self-administered.

They'll loosen it for Christmas. If they don't people will just ignore it anyway.

If they reopen everything in December so we go out and spend spend spend like good consumers for Christmas, then all mix with our families and extended families on Christmas day so Boris Johnson gets to claim that he 'saved Christmas', then yes, the lockdown will need to be reinstated on Jan 1 and will last for several months more.

@Takemetothebar

So the government don’t want to scare people further, but you do?

Do you feel better, having made more frightened people, more frightened?

Could you at least piss off to the Covid board?

Exactly. I mean seriously, who is this

there's no way this lockdown will be sufficient. At the end of four weeks schools will shut early for Christmas, when deaths reach a frighteningly high level.

supposed to help?

We cannot afford not to reopen hospitality and retail in December. Its the biggest month of the year.

The point is not to stop people getting it completely, its solely to slow it enough to allow the NHS to manage, capacity wise. We are at the stage now where people need to get it. Even if full antibody immunity does not last more than 3-4 months, t cell etc may well provide longer term protection. Also the long term likelihood is it becomes like the common cold viruses eg adenoviruses, where its constantly circulating enough to reboost people immunity to a point were subsequent infections are milder.

Not a chance it’s 4 weeks. Same situation as last time- they will extend bit by bit to try and ease everyone into a longer lockdown. I can see schools and universities shutting down fully for December so Boris can pretend he’s saved Christmas.

Actually that is a valid point - what is saving Christmas - because actually having retail/hospitality open is far more important to the economy than families mixing for Christmas

Even when we get a vaccine, they will have to prioritise the order that different groups will get it, and there still probably won't be enough for everyone to get it in the first year. If it takes 3-4 months to give the flu vaccine to roughly 7m people a year, it would take over 2 years to vaccinate

As far as I know there is not a plan to vaccinate everyone? I thought it was like the flu jab that older, or vulnerable people get it, anyone else is able to (depending on availability) if they pay for it. They will start with HCP and the most vulnerable first. Only the most unwell people with covid will end up being hospitalised and many people will have had it quite mildly, or not even known they had it. (I know a certain % have had long covid) so potentially could vaccinate the most in need within a few months.

Of course they're going to extend it. We are in competition with France and Italy to not have the government with the most lax restrictions, so we don't lose the death rate stakes, even though those death rates are measured differently in each country.

This is more about saving political reputations and avoiding headlines about the NHS reaching or over-reaching capacity (as has happened before in much more fatal flu epidemics in recent years).

We are now governed by the need for good PR. Clearly, constant back tracking and lockdowns are an absolute disaster for mental health, people's small businesses and business certainty but they make the government look "caring".

Goodness knows how people in years to come and going to pay for all this PR.

Not a chance in hell of it being 4 weeks.
I think they will allow us all to meet up between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day but that's it until March. I also think by the end of November the children will be back to home learning.
I wouldn't like to be a teacher right now, according to a graph I saw from PHE, the highest transmission rates are from school.

I think we need to stop calling it a lockdown - this isn't a lockdown

I'm not sure the high street and all the businesses haemorrhaging money will see it quite that way

I don't really expect an answer to this because there never is, but I'll ask anyway ...
Once the economy is completely trashed, exactly where do people expect the money to come from to keep society going in future?

I live in a tier 1 area, we currently have 66 cases per 100, 000. I’d guess this four week lockdown will reduce that by somewhere between a half and a quarter, so a conservative estimate would put us at around 50 cases per 100, 000 on 2nd November, potentially much lower. I don’t see how anyone could justify those kinds of figures continuing with an full(ish) lockdown. My prediction is that what are currently tier 1 areas will go to something like a current tier 3 lockdown, while other areas will go to tiers 4 or 5, so something like non essential shops back open but pubs and restaurants still closed.

Origami penguin is spot on. We cant afford to shut down the many areas with less cases

I think we’ll go into tier 4, where shops and restaurants are allowed to open but no mixing of households. Then we’ll have some kind of Christmas bubble allowance for meeting up for 2 weeks and then straight back into it with rising rates in January. Just in time for Brexshit.

Melbourne vistoria was staid locked down until they got to 0. Now a handful of cases and school returned but still sending home kids for coughs colds and sniffles.

So different to here.