So surely now is the moment for the UK to shut down?

[littleblackdress04]

All the info I have read online indicates that the UK is probably 2 weeks behind Italy in terms of infection. So rather than wait until the horse has proverbially bolted, wouldn’t it make more sense to shut down now and stop a massive spread of coronavirus?

There will be more cases, that goes without saying.
we need the staff to look after the very ill.
if you shut down too early people will go stir crazy, and they will release early
the scientists are following the numbers, looking at what is occuring in China.

Advice for schools is to wash all hands on arrival at school and before leaving as well as the other times before eating and after the toilet etc. Only my class is doing this because other teachers think it’s a fuss absolutely nothing.

The maths of the thing is a doubling of cases every x days (sorry I can't remember the number! I saw it from an epidemiologist on Twitter who has run the numbers). She thought Italy's numbers were right and honest and that's the key thing - ITALY'S NUMBERS ARE HONEST - or as honest as a country can be with the time lag between infection, showing symptoms, testing and getting the results.

If you shut everything down to early then in a few weeks, when it really would be necessary to shut everything down, people will be fed up, have isolation fatigue, start breaking rules and then that is when it could explode.

That's how I understand it anyway. We have to wait until things get worse to make a shut down in any way effective.

About not absolutely. So you’ll no doubt get similar responses if you ask people to stay home. It’s worrying that so many people are so arrogant and ignorant in combination.

Regardless of what the plan is, I believe at this stage the government should be informing the public of precisely what it intends to do and when. Not vague pronouncements of “we’re keeping an eye on things” but concrete proposals and timelines. Sharing information will not “compromise” the situation. This isn’t a terrorist group which can change its plans. People need to know what the current government thinking is so they can at least begin to prepare themselves mentally for time off work/shut schools etc. Not knowing is leading to more panic and anxiety than everyone sharing a clear plan of action (or inaction). This is assuming that the government does indeed have a plan, which I wouldn’t bet on given the way it has thus handled the Brexit debacle.

It was on the TV yesterday- Newsnight I think, if there are more patients than there are ICU beds then they will triage. That means they will give the bed to the person most likely to get well. The whole premise of managing the virus is not to stop everyone getting it because that’s not possible. What they need to do is to spread it out so not everyone is sick at the same time.

Exactly @LambriniSocialist

It's all about timing. Too early and lots of people think it's an over-reaction and don't comply. Too late and you've got a epidemic on your hands. It's a very fine line.

The problem is that closing schools means that healthcare workers with children won’t be able to get to work

Agree.

And nor will police officers, prison officers, firefighters, pharmacists, gas and electricity workers, bin collectors, supermarket delivery drivers, etc etc.

Some jobs are not only essential to the safety of the country on an everyday basis but are also 24/7/365 in their nature.

So how would closing down work in practice? It wouldn't. It would just make a bad situation even worse.

Let's just follow the advice we've been given.

Little, it's awful.

We are waiting for the lorry barrelling towards us to hit some of us, so the brits will then succumb to other measures....

They don't want to go... Too early 🙄.

Because people get bored. Why not let those of us who want to go early, go early?
My dd 7, has a hacking cough already.
She massively struggles with chest issues and has an inhaler..

I want to go early and I won't get bored keeping dd out of the clutches of covid.. PS the schools petition is doing well.

if she is poorly @Facing, keep her off school, can you take time off work?

Lilgreen.
You need to town report your school, anonymously if needed... In loco parentis.

Well yes as your about to see complete carnage unfold. Would be happy to be proved wrong.

If we shut everything down to early then in a few weeks, when it really would be necessary to shut everything down, people will be fed up, have isolation fatigue, start breaking rules and then that is when it could explode.

I agree. I think we will start the closures in a week or two depending on figures.

As far as I can surmount, the problem is that the virus fares very differently in different countries and areas due to the huge discrepancies in social, geographical etc conditions. It’s very hard to plot a graph because the rate of expansion was X% in country Y.
Yesterday was “ only” 43 new infections in the UK. Today we could see another 20 or it could be 200+. We just don’t know.

Bullet points for speed:-

• One theory about the rampant spread in Italy is that is it still a cash economy and money carries a lot of germs
• Children are not suseptable to the virus. It's not that their symptoms are milder, it's that they don't catch. A theory is that they are being exposed to coronavirus type viruses all the time and their immune systems are more active at dealing with it. If this is the case, I don't see shutting (primary) schools as being helpful.
• I've seen it stated widely that cases will naturally diminish as we move into April and out of the seasonal flu season. In this sense our being two weeks behind Italy is quite helpful.

I don't know if it's available, but there is a very reassuring interview with Prof Oxford, a virologist on Nigel Farage LBC on Sunday just gone.

Erica. No temp, seems well in herself but I'm always on alert when she has a cough. She'd massively struggle with covid.
I don't feel I can take time off work myself or keep her off.

Why didn't they give people the choice? Then those who need to keep working can and others can help to thin out the population.

Read what's coming out of Italy re hospitals.

As far as I'm aware children do catch it though. Just in lesser no.
They are not immune at all.

Hope someone proves me wrong.

Dc also transmit to their parents.

As an aside, I know several Chinese international high school students in the UK. Apparently about 90% of Chinese international high school students have gone back to China (and the risk of passing through airports etc that entails) because the government there is insisting on keeping kids out of school while the government here is insisting on kids going to school (and not wearing face masks). If nothing else, it shows an interesting difference in cultural mentality. Time will tell which course was the wiser, ie the Chinese no nonsense approach with severe short term economic consequences, or the balancing act we are attempting here.

Regarding "if we shut down everything, how will the country function?" think about the second world war. When there was conscription, some jobs were considered essential and people working in there were not conscripted. Doctors, farmers, utility workers, all the people needed to keep the basic infrastructure in place. These people would have to be exempted.

My dd 7, has a hacking cough already.
She massively struggles with chest issues and has an inhaler..

Why don't you just keep her off school sick?

Ireland has already cancelled all st Patrick day parades.
The government has committed to paying a benefit payment of over €200 per week to those in self employment and under contracts with little to no sick leave
The department of education has already promised to continue to pay ALL staff.
The dept of education is currently in talks to close schools for a MONTH!

I also have a child with a comorbitity and I find the blasé attitude of some posters on this thread quite callous.

I think that 2 weeks ago whilst I can see that shutting the country off was not going to be practical I do think companies that could have people working from home and just have a skeleton staff on site should have been encouraged and people should have been encouraged to stay at home where possible.

I think in some cases it would have been easier to trace those that were infected and reduced the number infected of people they came into contact with.

Even now I think this would give us a fighting chance of getting a grip on the situation.

Really surprised that we still have flights coming in from Italy.

If Italy is in lockdown then surely that would mean that no flights would leave.

Quite worried as dp if he got it would be highly likely to not recover because he has no immunity. He has diabetes, cancer and has had his spleen removed.

I am in the age group where it jumps up quite a bit.
I had flu over Christmas and if I didn’t know any better I could have sworn I had the Coronavirus. I struggled to breathe and had the fever and the worse cough ever. At one point it was taking all my strength to make it to the bathroom and I coughed so much that not only couldn’t I sleep but I was struggling to breathe between coughs.
Even with a cold the infection goes into my lungs and I get a chest infection.
I have had flu before where I felt so ill I thought I was not going to make it through the night but I did and began to feel slightly better once the fever had broken but this was definitely worse over a longer period

It took me till mid February to actually recover completely from and regain my strength as I was so weak.

Dd is asthmatic so I worry about her response to an infection like this.

Our only other family members are dmil who is 94 and in a nursing home and dps brother who is quite elderly

Ds is the only member of our family who isn’t in any of the at risk groups

Whilst I can understand that people are being quite blase about this if you are under 40 and have young children but please think that not everyone else is.

As far as I'm aware children do catch it though. Just in lesser no.
They are not immune at all.

Yes, they can catch it, but it seems there is a far lower propensity for them to do so.

See here: www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-case-children-infants-low-disease-expert-explain-why-2020-2%3famp