If You Were Prime Minister?

[Leflic]

So we can’t cure it and it will kill the elderly or those with pre existing health issues.

A totally lockdown could stop this in its tracks now. No more deaths in the next few weeks. However we will then face a similar outbreak every few months once we return to normal because fewer healthy people will have exposure ( and might go into winter and regular flu ) Vaccine might only be a wait of a year. Or maybe the virus will burn out?

Or we accept deaths and that 97% will be ok and have immunity at the expense of 3% of the population.

Which way are you inclined?

Lockdown. We've been softened up enough with mealy mouthed "recommendations ".

Total lockdown , ration food nominate a supermarket per individual so they could organise the supply better and reduce the collection of people shopping

Lockdown.

Lockdown as in Italy, France etc where you need a pass to leave the house and one person per household has the shopping pass. Far too many people getting around the 3 item rule by turning up with 5 members of their family by me.

Imagines for anyone breaking the rules taken straight from their wages.

Massive fines and shaming for profiteering from businesses too.

It sounds draconian and extreme but sadly that’s what is needed now to protect the vulnerable and help the nhs do the best it can do.

Fines not imagines. Autocorrect would be banned too while I’m at it...

Ok so lockdown popular.

How many people do we think have had it. I have a few friends that think they have bit obviously no way of knowing. How do we know when it’s “safe to come out”?

Strong lockdown, isolate and test every person with symptoms, trace all contacts, isolate and test them. Keep going until we run it to ground everywhere. Cautiously release lockdown in areas with no new cases for at least 14 days.Two weeks quarantine for anybody coming into the country.

The way this pandemic has been handled by our government has been a fucking disgrace. Every day feels like about a month at the moment so let us remind ourselves that the Cheltenham Festival, a four day racing event with over 250,000 attendees from all over the country, was allowed to go ahead just last week. That's how shit we have been.

I'm not reading much media at the moment, I'm watching the WHO press conferences and our own government's press conferences.

WHO fill me with hope because there is a real sense of the world working together, sharing knowledge and resources and learning from each other. There is a real sense that, however difficult and devastating and heartbreaking the situation is, we CAN beat this and there are already some tentative success stories.

Then I watch our lot and I utterly fucking despair. We've been watching this slow motion juggernaut approaching for over two months now. We've been able to watch what has happened in other countries in response to a variety of approaches. We have squandered all that time and we have ignored the lessons from everywhere else. We are a group of islands and we have squandered the obvious advantage that gives us.

This virus does not give a shit about freedom or democracy. It doesn't give a shit about the economy. It doesn't give a shit about our emotional and mental health needs. It doesn't give a shit about child development or the welfare of vulnerable people. It doesn't give a shit if lots of us die and our health systems collapse because there are plenty of us.

Coronavirus is just a greasy little bag of rna that will jump to a new host and replicate itself in vast numbers if it has the chance. If it doesn't get the chance it will die out in a matter of weeks. We either stop it or we let it burn.

'Do not let this fire burn'
(Dr Tedros, director general of WHO, March 13)

There is no need for a lockdown. What we should be doing is rapidly expanding our testing capacity and telling those who are vulnerable to self-isolate.

South Korea is getting through this by testing everyone with symptoms and then isolating people who are positive and their contacts.

That would be far more effective than populist but stupid measures like lockdowns.

I think Stormy is right. Lockdown in my opinion is a stupid idea with risks if it’s own. I don’t believe it will work either.

Lock down until we get on top of the testing and then gradually reduce lock down in low risk areas.

South Korea started testing and tracing very early and kept it up. They're not quite there yet but they definitely have a handle on it. We're still only testing people who are unwell enough to be admitted to hospital and we are doing no contact tracing. We now have over twice the number of deaths as South Korea and we're just getting started on the steep part of the curve.

We've let this get out of hand so we need to do both now, lockdown and then start testing and contact tracing every suspected case.

South Korea are about to bring in stronger regulations. Cases have started going up there again.

Is anyone calling for lockdown actually doing it now? Because you can.

If not, why not?

You can’t just let it burn through the community unchecked. As we can see from Italy the health system gets overwhelmed. So you don’t just have 3% old and vulnerable dying from Corona Virus all other parts of the health system would grind to a halt as well. What if you had a car accident and needed intensive care or had a relative that needed cancer treatment. On top of this a large amount of health worker will become sick themselves and some will die.

@bluetongue

Old and vulnerable people would not die if they stayed at home in their bedrooms. Otherwise, they are taking their own chance and that is their right, but should not mean the rest of us should be locked down.

@HowIrresponsible yes. Working from home and not leaving the house. High risk and no wish to get it. Not food shopping, not socialising, and I live alone. I got sent home from work Tuesday

Meanwhile I'm seeing the beaches, seafront, parks, piers, mountains, all rammed with people and going WTF. People are not listening and TBH if it ends up with a lockdown it's their own bloody fault. I've done as I was told and am prepared to stay in for 12 weeks but some people can't even manage one Saturday

I can do all of my job from home. Have to go in. Only got given the option to wfh on Friday!

I go out for food and for walks and cycling. I wasn't socialising anyway

Mine is tricky from home (contact centre) but due to the risk they sent me home as I got a call from my consultant

Three-pronged approach.

1. stronger lockdown. I would want to talk to epidemiologists and other experts about exactly how strong before I made the decision

2. Expand testing capacity for those possibly infected, and roll it out to everyone in the community.

3. Antibody testing. Find and identify those who are immune and shuffle responsibilities accordingly.

And finally, if China can chuck together a hospital in a week, so can we. We need to have coronavirus patients physically in a different building from people who are in there for something else.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-flights-from-italy-iran-and-china-still-landing-3v7363rxr

I would stop this.

Wtf are flights still landing here from anywhere let alone China, Italy and Iran.

For fuck sake

Lock down won't work if this continues

Spell out and enforce stronger social distance measures.

Large supermarkets to switch to a 'click and collect' system of contact free shopping. You order online, get a slot to pick up and its loaded straight into your car.

Centres to deal with suspected norovirus cases to be set up separately from other nhs services. Private hospitals could be used to facilitate this.

Key worker list to be made more specific.

Businesses to be made publically accountable if they arent willing to make adjustments for their employees to work at home or juggle things around children no longer at school.

Coronavirus autocorrected to norovirus there... if only!

Test everyone with symptoms, lockdown, keep testing as new cases come up, block all flights and entry into the uk except citizens on repatriation flights and they immediately go into lockdown.

My real fear is pandoras box is well and truly open and lockdown will only stem it s small amount as we are too late. It should of been done last week.

Lockdown. I am biased as I have an underlying condition and am only in my 30s but I know someone now on a ventilator with no underlying conditions. There is an assumption that everyone will be fine, but that is not necessarily the case. The idea is to flatten the curve so NHS isn't overwhelmed and the death rate rockets.

At the moment all the advice and 'if you could kindly' is not working. There maybe needs to be a series of lockdowns with careful releases to spread things out and a huge increase in testing.

There is still no concrete proof about immunity anyway and we need to buy more time for NHS and trials with drugs and a move toward a vaccine. Immunity doesn't protect from a mutated strain anyway.

Also I am locked down. Haven't left the house in two weeks. I also hate all this talk about underlying conditions. I know a lot of people with asthma for example, some of them children.