Lockdown is not the answer

[NellyGrace]

We have a vulnerable family member and have been isolating for 9 days. This is unsustainable. It will drive us mad.

Whilst it was just the vulnerable we could cope as we could still go out to walk. We have no garden.

If the crazy want to carry on mixing. Let them. The vulnerable can hide if they choose.

Test like South Korea and isolate the pockets of disease.

We should not be allowing governments to use this as a way to take away our freedom.

What i find rather worrying is that we are destroying everything we know to protect a generation that is close to dying.

Now before i get crucified for this, we have no real alternative in a civilised society but what happens when cornwalls 13 icu beds are full of the over 80s and a 13 year old boy has sepsis (following a small cut) and needs one? and all the available hospital beds are taken up by the elderly on ventilators....does he die in an ambulance? or do we chuck out an 80yo ?

So what happens when we come out of this and most shops are closed down, you can't buy tyres for your car, a service, a new fridge etc etc thats assuming you have any money as you lost your job 4 months ago.....
Plus how is this borrowing by govt going to be paid back?

The initial lockdown system has not meant no going out at all in Europe, just strict rules about why you can go out. Essential services are still running. Food shops and chemists are open. We can go for walks alone or with children. It's about thinking about why you are going out and limiting it. Those who can work from home should do it. Those who can keep their children at home should do it. It is not fun but it's necessary. I'm worried about not getting essential treatment for existing conditions but there's nothing I can do. If I end up bedbound I will just have to put up with it and hope someone can help me when services are restored.

What happens when Cornwall 13 ICU beds
Presumably the same as what happened in Italy☹️
I agree we are destroying everything we have to protect a generation who are close to dying anyway, but if we stop behaving in a civilised way when we no longer live in a civilised society and no one wants that
Difficult choices

Then we no longer live in a civilised society

The problem with using the Diamond Princess as a case study is that it doesn't conceivably present an accurate control sample. Yes, most people on the cruise were elderly, but they were also in the main well-nourished with a history of access to adequate medical care and good hygiene facilities, and they were able keep the passengers reasonably separate from each other. It bears no comparison to what happens with, say, people packed into public transport, working close to each other every day, and potentially encountering hundreds more potentially infected people through going into shops, parks, schools, colleges, restaurants, cinemas and theatres, other leisure facilities etc etc. In particular, it bears no resemblance to the situation for people in crowded and substandard living conditions.

All of the Hitchens article is based on carefully picked views like this that just don't bear close examination, and that has always been his technique for putting forward batshittery. It's a real shame he couldn't put public safety ahead of his personal ego for once.

@jasjas1973 In Italy they triage to decide who lives and dies, the young without comorbities get the ventilator if there is one, the older person/with comorbities person dies. That is what will happen. Healthy people get the virus, and can have their lungs destroyed by it, and can die from it. It will depend probably on the exposure and the immune system - which can vary even for healthy people. Without lockdown younger healthy people could catch the virus and would die if there were no ventilators as all the ventilators were being used for other young people. nearly 5000 people have died in Italy, including young. 800 in the last 24 hours I think. Because they took too long to lockdown and implement other measures, buy in ventilators.

OP isolation for 9 days means you are in france? You can go out for walks if you keep away from others? Leaving aside no lockdown what would alleviate your particular situation do you think? Many in france are reporting all is fine/coping on an online poll. obvs it is easier for some than others - a happ y relationship with spouse, big house/garden easier than not having that. what would alleviate your circs, what ideas would you have, other than no lockdown?

NellyGrace you thought lockdown was the only answer yesterday in the other thread.

I think it’s silly to be saying we should do what S.Korea is doing, instead. For one thing, it’s now too late as we’ve lost track of who got what, when and where. For another, S. Koreans are much more likely to do as they are told, follow advice and be community minded than people in this country. For another, the way people commute and live in this country is not the same as in S. Korea. People are just whingeing and complaining and saying we should do something else because they don’t want to do as they are told (see my second point...).

People have emotional responses at different stages. It is an emotionally painful process. We need compassion for people who have received contradictory and confusing massages, and who ironically do not research independently because of official messages to rely solely on official messages because everything else is exaggerated 'fake' news.

Also people don't get exponential growth. DS2 has covered this in GCSE maths and it is really not that hard to comprehend despite being counter-intuitive. Watch math videos.

Community spirit can only grow when we assume that we are all infected and contagious, even if we are well, rather than assuming we are fine but all the other 'idiots' are the problem and may infect us.

Then choosing to go out means assuming that you will infect a couple of others, and each of them will infect a couple of others. Assuming a 1% death rate by the time 100 others are infected one person has died, another 5 are fighting for their life in ICU and 20 are hospitalised. And that was then. Before the NHS was overwhelmed.

We can't see it yet but the NHS has already been overwhelmed (exponential growth + 20 days from infection to death). Add the deaths of patients who will not be treated. Add the deaths of health care workers with inadequate PPE.

It didn't have to be this way. But it is (deliberate choices) of our elected leaders and the economic system to put the economy before the people it depends on.

There is currently a young, fit & healthy 36 year old Nurse fighting for her life in intensive care in Walsall due to coronavirus. It is not just elderly/ vulnerable people who are getting it. It is also being passed on to healthcare workers who have no choice but to treat people with coronavirus day in day out.

Stay. At. Home. Doctors and Nurses up and down the UK are literally begging you.

@jasjas1973 it isn't just saving the elderly. As I've written earlier, there is currently a 36 year old nurse with no health issues fighting for her life in intensive care, on a ventilator due to coronavirus. I believe it is 13 doctors who have lost their lives in Italy due to it.

It's not too late for testing. If we have a lockdown, we buy time to conduct the testing, and the locating, and the tracing. Then we don't need to have that "second wave" because we do things BETTER the second time around. The RIGHT way, the way we should have done it the first time around.

Retreat, buy time, organise and then kick this virus' ass, South Korean style.

medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

I agree Jasjas and what is galling is that many of that generation are not taking this seriously at all.

It’s about ruining the economy forever. Who wants to survive and find themselves queuing for government rations? Those people can self isolate.

Well me actually I'd like to see my children grow up, I'd like to have another run in the sunshine, a swim in the sea and feel the wind in my hair. If I do that while eating goverment rations so be it.

It is too late to track and trace.we are several weeks too late. We are too late to not overwhelm the nhs. It is too late.

Hopeful, well you self isolate then, sorted.

In some areas they’ve had to ease lockdown because the death rate through suicide was so much higher than the death rate through Corona (and modelling predicted the suicide rate would continue to eclipse Corona deaths).

If we force everyone in the country to stay locked inside (bear in mind many people live alone, live in DV situations, or live in a single room - lockdown alone contained to one room is totally different from lockdown in a huge house with a garden and your loved ones around!) the suicide rate will go through the roof.

I wish we'd locked down weeks ago when it would have made a difference. By Easter we'll have as many cases as Italy, and thousands will die.
People won't take it seriously until it happens to them or their loved ones.
It's too late to make much of an impact in reducing cases, we are to stay inside, cope with the virus/die.
Or, carry on working until we catch it.

I have friends in northern Italy… Talking to them and hearing about the current situation brings reality… They’re having to transfer patients to other regions, one of my friends also has lost family members within the past 24 hours.

Pretend there is a huge snowstorm outside, or it’s Christmas… This is temporary. It’s not easy for anybody, but it’s a time where we need to be supportive and help each other. We can help each other to stay inside, find things to do to keep the boredom at bay.

Kitty “ This is temporary.”

The effect on the economy is not, if the hysteria goes on.

Everybody is vulnerable. Even you

Sole, to whom are you asking that question? We all know that!

The person who asked the question.. Who else?

Tracking and testing should have happened when there were a handful of cases. We’re far too late for that now, and people still keep going out.

We missed our chance. Weak leadership pandering to the masses who said it was only flu. Prioritising the economy in a way which will result in the economy being far more screwed.