Omg. The next step in the strategy. And if we all stick together it may work

[Bool]

Next step in UK strategy. Lock down all the over 70s (and other immunocompromised - kids / adults) for 4 months. Lock them down. Then make it illegal to close schools. That means we gain immunity to the virus as a population and keeps the beds open for the unusual cases that are not foreseen.

@Alice02132354

You’ve misunderstood my stance. My mum is already self isolating and we’ve agreed to not see her again until this is over. She was heartbroken not to see DD but it is for the best.

DH is now taking annual leave so that I can go to work. But if the government doesn’t come up with a childcare plan for teachers or they don’t close schools before Easter then I’ll have to tell my head I cannot come in.

Teaching is made up of quite a high proportion of working mothers- many with young children. I won’t be the only one with this issue. And that’s before you count all the older teachers with health issue and the ones who have elderly relatives dependant on them.

That is the problem with a profession mostly made up of women- they are mostly inevitably caring for some one young or elderly or vulnerable.

So those adults (not over 80s but 20s/30s/40s/50s) who fall into the vulnerable categories but have young school children - whatever the supposed to do if they have to take their children to school? They either follow the rules and lock down for months (with their children) and face the wrath of the EWO or they break rule and go to school with their children coming into daily contact with many more people, twice a day (crowded playground dropping off/pick up) to ensure thirt child attends school? Any answers for that @Bool

And our strategy is so great because nothing has to shut down. In fact, it can't shut down Boris is putting through legislation that FORCES SCHOOLS TO STAY OPEN. He's removing testing for coronavirus, which means we can't actually know who is a confirmed case and workplaces and higher education institutes can't follow protocols for contact tracing, deep cleaning or closing.

And in theory we save the economy, because we can't shut down.

But hundreds of thousands of people die, unnecessarily.

So I would have to keep my T1 diabetic at home but my 16 year old (who is doing GCSE's) will still go to school?

Isolation for over 70s 'within weeks

It is a BBC link. However, many over 70s that I know will not comply.

Its fucking barbaric, is what it is.

Yes - but it will save lives by having a functioning health service. If everyone got ill all at once then there would not be enough beds for everyone at that particular time. Similar to bog roll buying - if you have 95 packs and 100 people who have run out, 5 people won't be able to wipe their bums until you get your next delivery next week. But if you have 90 packs today and another 90 next week if you delay just 5 of those initial purchases through changing their perception of when they are running out then all 100 can wipe their bums with impunity.

Similar with hospital beds / respirators - if you delay people catching the virus by asking them to reduce their exposure then you can recycle the 100 beds over a longer period giving more bed spaces. If everyone gets ill at once & tries to access the limited number of beds at the same time then you are only able to treat the number of patients you have beds for. If you split infection / admission over 2 periods you can treat twice the number of people with the same number of beds.

I completely agree with @BelleSausage's point about teachers. Teachers, and also nurses, are disproportionate female, and disproportionately likely to have caring responsibilities for people who are vulnerable.

Boris is currently putting laws in place to force their workplaces to stay open, to force them to work or else lose their livelihoods, and removing our ability to confirm cases of coronavirus or take protective action to trace contacts and isolate them.

This is something the Over 70s can do to protect themselves but also to protect everyone else. It's not going to be fun for them but it's life and death and only for a short time. If they don't self isolate then they as a group WILL get sick and WILL overwhelm the NHS. This then puts everyone else at risk and will undermine the entire healthcare system for the country.

Stay inside to protect themselves but also for the greater good.

One way of silencing the leader of the opposition I guess.

Also, I repeat -- there is no actual evidence to show that we CAN develop herd immunity to coronavirus. The science doesn't say so, yet.

Well, you can forget “sticking together”. The stockpilers and panic buyers have shown that we as a nation are not capable of that.

Most people do develop immunity to the coronaviruses we have studied before. They're only a proportion of the roughly 200 viruses that cause the common cold. So far there are minimal to no reported cases of repeat infection - certainly not a high enough number to suggest that this coronavirus is different to the others in immunity terms. There are always a small number of people who don't develop immunity even where it's the normal response (just like there are some people who vaccines don't work for)

There's also evidence that this is slow to mutate - the Roslyn institute in Edinburgh did some research and outlined why.

Covid19 is 'barbaric' if you wish to use emotive language. But of course, it is neutral, it is a virus, it just does what it does. And as a virus, it is most dangerous for the over 70s and immune supressed. That is just a fact.

I don't understand people baying for school closures while simultaneously pearl clutching at isolating over 70s. Both are not what any one wants, no one wanted this pandemic. All we can do is try and take the wisest action. I'm not an epidemeologist, I don't know what that is. But I do know strident demands and emotive language have no effect on a virus.

If you keep the elderly and vulnerable in quarantine the ventilators and beds are available for those who will get it and are more likely to survive
It’s just a u turn as perhaps they felt guilty about sending the vulnerable off first and also now they’ve realised it’s going to affect the workforce they want to avoid that. Because it will
They don’t know enough about this virus to tell us the young and fit will be ok, that’s kids seem ok and the advice quickly out out re pregnancy ....once that all gets revealed as incorrect it’s going to cause panic and they dont want the icu beds already cluttered up by those who are in the vulnerable category

Frankly there is going to be so much fear and social stigma that many will stay inside. I can imagine elderly will be confronted in the streets and shops as well as public transport. They will be made social pariahs if they are seen "flouting".

Petition asking for UK lockdown petition.parliament.uk/petitions/301397

@ Bool There is no evidence we can get ummunity from this, so not sure this is really a strategy.

A petition for a full lock down but rallying against a partial one? Bizarre.

Majority of elderly people I know will NOT be told what to do, I really don’t think they’ll want to be isolated and they won’t stay in what are the government going to do in that scenario

They have said s lockdown will happen, when the time is right. People are already discussing playdates, outraged that the over 70s are likely to be asked to isolate for the next few months- the time is not yet, it won't work.

Arguing against the herd immunity notion is a bit stupid if you are simultaneously arguing that a vaccine will eventually be developed... All viruses mutate. They don’t normally mutate so rapidly and radically that your immune system doesn’t recognise the mutated version at all. I don’t see how a vaccine can be developed if the herd immunity notion is a load of rubbish - and if we can’t develop a vaccine, we can’t spend the rest of eternity hiding from each other, either. So, we have to hope that herd immunity is a thing... because the idea the entire world can isolate itself so efficiently that the virus dies out altogether is farcical.

It is a sensible strategy which many of those who are vulnerable are already doing, whether young or old. Most people support school remaining open otherwise we would not have nurses and doctors to care for the sick and children would kill granny off etc.

Of course there will be cases where a vulnerable parent then risks catching it from the children but no more so than if the children were playing outside or with a childminder. If the parent is worried about that then I suppose the same things we did in WWII are possible - we sent children away for safety sometimes for years to the countryside where no bombs were. The Queen has moved to Windsor today which is wise given her age.

People will not like any decision the Government takes but it is acting on the best medical advice for the UK in seeking to delay problems so that things are spread out in a way we can cope with.

Some people will need to self isolate totally at home too which means separate towels, ideally a separate bathroom, lots of cleaning at home, keeping apart from people in the same household as much as possible. I suppose with airbnb bookings right down any one with enough money who thinks they risk getting sick and whose spouse can manage the family without them could try to book an airbnb in the Scottish highlands for a month and not see anyone there and take provisions!

So we lock all the pensioners in their houses for 4 months and they ball survive but then who's going to deal with the damage to their mental health afterwards? We can't view this just as surviving the virus what is the point in that if a large proportion of the population is damaged in other ways? Loneliness kills it's a very well known fact!

That said, aiming for herd immunity as quickly as possible is stupid, of course, because our health services will collapse.