What if everyone in the world isolated for the same three weeks....

[Rissole]

.....or whatever time period was deemed appropriate. Wouldn't that rid us of Covid once and for all as it would die out?

All we would have to do is get enough food in for the time period and stay in. A collective whole world self isolation. Job done!

I get what the OP is saying though. And even though we may not ever be able to totally isolate everyone such as medical staff, surely if less people were out and about there would be less accidents. Fewer car crashes, fewer fights, fewer workplace accidents. Not none, but fewer. It could drastically reduce the Covid cases but only if the government supplied everyone with food parcels for the duration. And after seeing the shambles that was the packed lunches lockdown, sadly I think a lot of people would starve to death if they relied on the government .

Some people appear to be taking this way too seriously. It’s not Johnson crowd sourcing new policy. It’s some random musings on a hypothetical scenario. Of course it’s not possible.

@bofski14

I get what the OP is saying though. And even though we may not ever be able to totally isolate everyone such as medical staff, surely if less people were out and about there would be less accidents. Fewer car crashes, fewer fights, fewer workplace accidents. Not none, but fewer. It could drastically reduce the Covid cases but only if the government supplied everyone with food parcels for the duration. And after seeing the shambles that was the packed lunches lockdown, sadly I think a lot of people would starve to death if they relied on the government .

Less accidents, car crashes, fights, workplace accident etc... shall we lockdown forever to keep those figures down?

@leafygarden42

She has no answers so is choosing to inform the vast major of people who are pointing out this is unworkable

That might be because the whole thing was a joke. It isn't actually a serious proposal - I'm astounded at the number of people taking the OP as being serious.!! And having a right good laugh about it.

And so many getting 'worked up' about it - hilarious

Are all the people who espouse this view taking the piss, or just OP?

It would be impossible, sadly. Very nice thought though, getting rid of this horrible thing once and for all!

@bofski14

I get what the OP is saying though. And even though we may not ever be able to totally isolate everyone such as medical staff, surely if less people were out and about there would be less accidents. Fewer car crashes, fewer fights, fewer workplace accidents. Not none, but fewer. It could drastically reduce the Covid cases but only if the government supplied everyone with food parcels for the duration. And after seeing the shambles that was the packed lunches lockdown, sadly I think a lot of people would starve to death if they relied on the government .

I mean, we could just do that forever and permanently reduce things like car crashes/fights etc, couldn’t we? Banning alcohol would significantly reduce pressure on the NHS, for starters. We could ban driving unless it was for work purposes. And why stop there? There are so many things we could ban.

Sounds lovely…unless you work in a care home/ residential home/ prison/ hospital/ care in the community etc

Anyone who’d suggest these staff “suck it up” and stay at work for 3 weeks because “no pain no gain” are clueless w*nkers.

Not this insanity again.

About a billion people would die under OP's plan, I reckon -- not exaggerating.
A lot of people (in world) don't have enough food in the house to last 3 weeks.

I don't have enough food that doesn't require cooking -- and we'd lose electricity. Unless of course all these people kept doing their job...

People working on the gas platform (they already live there for 2 week spells)
People maintaining the gas pipeline to GB
People working at the gas works
People monitoring the pipe network to the train station
People monitoring & maintaining the trains & train network that transports gas carriages
Train drivers, security staff
People doing redistribution things with gas at other end, like at the electricity generation plant

Repeat for coal imports, coal transport, nuclear fuel delivery-transport-generation, wind energy, solar grid...

All these people need food, safe drinking water, toilets (someone keeps the water network going), warmth, somewhere to sleep...

It wouldn't be possible.
If they asked everyone except essential workers there would be protests and no fecks given by so many people, it'll never work again.

We should all stop breathing for a week or two, that would sort it.

A billion people in three weeks? That can't be right.

You might be hungry but you're unlikely to starve to death in three weeks unless you had absolutely nothing and even then I think you could survive three weeks.

(I'm not suggesting that we should let people nearly starve btw)

Poorer countries have no hope with the current restrictions a lockdown would be disastrous.

Obviously OP’s proposal is completely untenable for a multitude of reasons … but I do wonder if something sort of like this could possibly have stopped the virus spreading if China had implemented it on a miniature scale at the outset - i.e. by locking down all the regions with cases for several weeks to allow it to ‘die out’ with essential supplies being dropped off from afar etc. Almost certainly not as no doubt by the time they realised it was a new / serious / transmissible virus people had already moved around too much to contain it… in addition it would mean anyone quarantined who became critically ill (either from covid or anything else) would be essentially left to die, so not exactly ethical.

This has to be a joke?

This may be the stupidest post I have read throughout the whole pandemic.

Maybe not leave homes, but not leave their local towns?
I think that would work.

@Rissole

I'm not saying it wouldn't take some massive organising

I have thought about this. One highly organised synchronised isolation. What about pregnant people? Theyd have to isolate together in batches with mw and doctors. All other procedures cancelled

I don't know what sounds worse tbh. Being stuck at work for 3 weeks or being stuck in the house with 3 kids. Both could probably drive me to the brink.

You've got to love the clueless optimism that comes with privilege.

It’s like the OP is in March 2020, three weeks to flatten the curve, everyone 😂😂😂

Speechless, absolutely speechless.

So drs and nurses can work, cool, how do they get to work? On the bus? So bus drivers can work. But what about fuel for said buses? Tankers you say? So tanker drivers can work, and fuel station workers.

Oh but, tanker drivers need to pee, so service stations can open, and they will need staff of course.

Now, let’s assume that everyone has the facilities to store enough food for three weeks (ridiculous assumption, but let’s run with it). Lots of it would be frozen, so better not let the power go out, so power workers can work. Oh and water, can’t go without water, so water workers can work.

We’ve all bought three weeks worth of food, so supermarkets can close, but, once they open, there’s gonna be bit of demand, so we’ll be needing food factory workers to make sure stocks are available. And farmers will have to work cos we can’t just let the animals die.

Speaking of animals, what about vets!

Oh, and all these people working, who’ll be looking after their kids?

I could go on, but you get the idea. This is a ridiculous idea.

@canary1

It’s like the OP is in March 2020, three weeks to flatten the curve, everyone 😂😂😂

Tbf, impossible though it is, if there had been a worldwide total lockdown we would have been over it by end of April 2020.

What about those households with say 6 people. One has covid and the rest get it one by one. It's going to be more than 3 weeks and if they are asymptomatic they wont know they've got it and wont be able to do a test to know or not. I know people that have come down with symptoms on the last day of their partners 10 day isolation. So youd in theory have to do 10 days for every individual in a household

So drs and nurses can work, cool, how do they get to work? On the bus? So bus drivers can work. But what about fuel for said buses? Tankers you say? So tanker drivers can work, and fuel station workers.

No, I think they'd have to isolate at the hospital. So no buses needed. No fuel for buses needed. No service stations.

Now, let’s assume that everyone has the facilities to store enough food for three weeks (ridiculous assumption, but let’s run with it). Lots of it would be frozen, so better not let the power go out, so power workers can work. Oh and water, can’t go without water, so water workers can work.

No, the food would have to be dried/tinned I think. Water is tricky. I think the water workers would also have to isolate at work. Everyone is issued with an emergency supply of bottled water.

We’ve all bought three weeks worth of food, so supermarkets can close, but, once they open, there’s gonna be bit of demand, so we’ll be needing food factory workers to make sure stocks are available. And farmers will have to work cos we can’t just let the animals die.

Farmers normally live in their farms right? So that's fine. I think we'd have to accept short term shortages after the global lockdown...not sure how that would work.

Speaking of animals, what about vets!

They're closed. Animals would have to wait or die.

Oh, and all these people working, who’ll be looking after their kids?

This would have to pre-arranged and the kids isolate with whoever is looking after them if their parents are isolating at work.

I could go on, but you get the idea. This is a ridiculous idea.

Of course it is! We can't even get people to follow rules around masks in one country! But it's an interesting hypothetical though.

Imagine doing that and something like storm Arwen landing in the middle of it.