Do you think the Covid situation will ever deteriorate again so badly that we need another lockdown?

[goaskmum]

Posting here for traffic.

I’m in no way suggesting the situation will ever deteriorate and I’m in no way advocating another lockdown.

I’m genuinely curious though, do you think the situation will get worse again, perhaps in the winter, were the hospitals can’t cope and we end up back in lockdown again?

Or do you think because most people are immune to covid either through having it or being vaccinated that it will keep on getting better from here on and there will never ever be a single restriction imposed again?

YABU - there will never ever be anymore restrictions. It’s over
YANBU - there could very well be another lockdown in the future if it gets out of hand

Lockdown is not being babied. You only have to look at the statistics pre-vaccine to see that it clearly had an effect on the infection rate, and at that time that was all we had to keep it under some sort of control.

It will be what it will be

I am utterly sick of people discussing Covid - this person tested + but they were - at their earlier test, so and so has a cold but they thought it was covid, So and so is isolating, numbers are high at the nursery/school/hospital etc etc etc etc etc etc

I DO NOT CARE - let's just get on with life and make the best of it

Never. It barely had any positive effects and loads of negative ones.

@LaurieFairyCake
Where is that 200,000 deaths figure coming from?

I didn't think the estimate was anything like that in the UK, and there were very few of the normal annual flu deaths, which are accepted every winter as part of the normal ageing process.

Thing is though that any variant which could dissolve omicron would have to be more infectious than omicron, and in that case restrictions short of lockdown are unlikely to do very much.

WRT restrictions there are two separate questions however: whether they're going to do anything useful and whether it's politically expedient to be seen to have them anyway. Obviously some restrictions are far too costly to be able to use purely as a sop, like lockdown or the return of isolation laws, but they're not all.

This is why I don't rule out masks coming back even in the face of an Omicron like strain where there's no reason to think they'd do much. I think anything that doesn't have an obviously significant cost to the state or economy might still be on the table in a Something Must Be Done situation.

true, agree with that. There is definitely more public appetite for “government needs to look like it’s doing something in a way which won’t inconvenience me personally very much” than there would be for full lockdowns.

@Enzbear

Never. It barely had any positive effects and loads of negative ones.

You only have to look at the statistical curve to see that it did have a very positive effect.

It will all boil down to the number of people dying in the end

From the publics pov maybe but in all (gruesome) honestly possibly not from the NHS/governments pov.

One of the biggest issues with covid is the disease progression means that those that succumb on average take a relatively long time to do so which is a factor in overwhelming hospitals which then forces treatments for other survivable issues to decline in quality/availability.

If disease progression speeds up with mutations we could tolerate higher levels of fatalities. Of course treatments feed into this and lives are prolonged whilst treatment attempts to save people but in a society where the expectation is to be at the very least made comfortable which usually requires treatment, it would have to be as maniac to suggest that we stop treating people while we have the means to do so.

After the unnecessary shit-show of the past couple of years, it should be written into law that never again can our freedoms be removed in this way.

Lockdowns achieved nothing
Masks achieve nothing

WFH where possible is sensible, as is self isolating.

I'm not sure it even boils down to the number of people dying of covid in the public perception either tbh. There could be a significant increase in the numbers of elderly people who die of it without that causing general desire for lockdown.

I don't think there will be. Pretty much zero chance unless a really dangerous varient emerged with much higher fatality and the vaccines were rendered pretty much useless against it. Luckily the new varient seems to be less severe and I think that trend will continue.

Seven day average deaths stayed below 300 death per day over the winter. I think we would have to get a very deadly strain with pretty much zero resistance before another lockdown. I wouldn’t think this to be likely to happen in the short term with the current covid strains as it appears to be sweeping through the population right now. We must be getting toward herd immunity with antibodies produced from covid plus the vaccination, surely?

I would imagine the population therefore to be somewhat immunised from becoming gravely ill from any new variant coming along right now but what about the future? Chris Whitty has warned another more deadly strain could come along within the next two years. Sage have stated there could even be a MERS like variant, which kills one in 3 people. Presuming we are approaching herd immunity and that covid had abated, antibodies will somewhat wane in the next two years if we don’t continue with vaccinations so I can see what he’s saying and in this scenario. Obviously then, restrictions would come back.

Hopefully, however, if a variant emerged causing 1 in 3 deaths, if would not spread as fast as BA.2 as the sufferers would die before infecting too many. I’ve seen too many films, where this isn’t the case though and I’d rather not think about it tbh.

@Mummyoflittledragon

Seven day average deaths stayed below 300 death per day over the winter. I think we would have to get a very deadly strain with pretty much zero resistance before another lockdown. I wouldn’t think this to be likely to happen in the short term with the current covid strains as it appears to be sweeping through the population right now. We must be getting toward herd immunity with antibodies produced from covid plus the vaccination, surely?

I would imagine the population therefore to be somewhat immunised from becoming gravely ill from any new variant coming along right now but what about the future? Chris Whitty has warned another more deadly strain could come along within the next two years. Sage have stated there could even be a MERS like variant, which kills one in 3 people. Presuming we are approaching herd immunity and that covid had abated, antibodies will somewhat wane in the next two years if we don’t continue with vaccinations so I can see what he’s saying and in this scenario. Obviously then, restrictions would come back.

Hopefully, however, if a variant emerged causing 1 in 3 deaths, if would not spread as fast as BA.2 as the sufferers would die before infecting too many. I’ve seen too many films, where this isn’t the case though and I’d rather not think about it tbh.

Part of living as humans now do is the risk of something coming along that wipes out a significant chunk of us. That's happened before, and the possibility always exists, so SAGE aren't saying anything much by pointing that out. It was true before covid arrived and it's still true now. But very few pandemics get anywhere near that level. And tbh, if anything that killed as many as the Black Death ever came along again now we have the level of connectivity we do, I think there's a fair chance civilisation would collapse as we all turned on each other.

@HardyBuckette
Totally agree with you. Society would collapse. I’m not worrying about it, which is what I meant about the not thinking about it. No point. Live for the now.

My perspective is that lockdowns helped kick the can down the road to allow the scientists to develop vaccines.

But the real issue was that the NHS wasn't able to cope. And let's be honest, over the last 5-10 years, this has ALWAYS been an issue of the NHS running at breaking point.

Back in 2020, clearly we couldn't magic up trained nurses/doctors. But we are now in year 3 of this pandemic. It takes 3 years to train a nurse. A doctor could be halfway through their training by now...So my view is that I wouldn't comply with a lockdown, because this government has had ample time to actually fix the issues that led to the lockdown in the first place. The type of virus is almost a mute point.

If they hadn't wasted so much money on test and trace, we could have the best health system in the world by now.

what they need to do is focus on sick pay, and ensuring that no one is financially disadvantaged by staying home when they are ill. In the long run, it would be much cheaper with better health benefits!

EtheltheArdvaark
You only have to look at the statistical curve to see that it did have a very positive effect

Not for people who lost businesses, jobs, their will to live, their lives, education, treatment for other illnesses.
Or people including children stuck in an abusive hell.
Not to mention people unable to see loved ones for their final birthday/Christmas/moments or attend their funerals.
Twisted statistical curves won't ever compete with real life.
Lockdown was complete bollocks.

[quote Mummyoflittledragon]@HardyBuckette
Totally agree with you. Society would collapse. I’m not worrying about it, which is what I meant about the not thinking about it. No point. Live for the now.[/quote]
Yeah, it's like a big asteroid hitting the earth or something isn't it? Not a lot you could do about it in that situation so no point in worrying.

Definitely not going to happen

Never say never, but things would have to be a lit worse than the original virus behaviour- high mortality in the younger population for example

I’m optimistic we won’t face another lockdown, though I’m not convinced, so much so I’m really pushing my youngest who’s doing mok GCSEs next month, just in case we end up going to predications again.
I think the death rates would really have to rocket for this to happen.

It is impossible to tell how any virus may mutate. We can't say it will never happen because what if it mutates into a huge killer and people start dropping like flies?

But, imo, that is hugely hugely unlikely and nothing short of that would trigger the lockdowns we've seen over the last couple of years.

@HardyBuckette
Agreed. Otherwise we would all be nervous wrecks.

No one knows what will happen to the world we live in . If anyone in say 2017 , said that practically the whole world would grind to a halt in a couple of years time because of a virus, would we have believed them ?
Best to try and live in the here and now really.

No and even if they do then we will not be following the lockdown rules. They destroyed us and resulted in two members of our family having mental health breakdowns. One was so severe that they became catatonic and lost the ability to speak and became doubly incontinent. It is not reasonable to force us to put ourselves through that again.

@TheRealityCheque

After the unnecessary shit-show of the past couple of years, it should be written into law that never again can our freedoms be removed in this way.

Lockdowns achieved nothing
Masks achieve nothing

WFH where possible is sensible, as is self isolating.

I agree with all of this.