Did UK introduce restrictions too early?

[Makeitgoaway]

Hear me out!

I don't think they planned to close schools when they did. I think the Welsh and Scotish governments forced their hand and they themselves were influenced by public opinion more than the science.

When I first heard "the plan" it sounded like there were terrible things to come but it made sense to me, as a way of controlling things as much as possible.

The public didn't like it and there was outrage that we didn't "lockdown" to protect ourselves, although "the public" also didn't behave in any sort of sensible manner to protect themselves as we saw last weekend.

So, measures were in force earlier than planned. The more restrictions there are and the earlier they are in place, the longer this thing will last. The restrictions don't protect "us", they protect the NHS. Most people will need to get it before this is over. Lockdown won't make it go away, just slow the rate of infection, meaning it takes longer to play out. While the NHS is coping, was there any need for the restrictions?

In Italy, it has taken 3 weeks for signs of social unrest to emerge. If that happens here we won't be even close to the peak at that stage. What happens then?

Shouldn’t be in lockdown at all. This will reverberate for decades.

Look at Sweden.

@alloutoffucks

Where on earth did i say the world would end???? or that we will never recover?

But a depression is not to be taken lightly and decisions taken now, will have long term impacts.

We should be shielding those at greatest risk and mass testing everyone else.

Acted late, but IMO also a poor reaction.

The countries who have coped the very best with the virus haven't introduced the kind of lock downs that the countries who are struggling to cope have done. Look at South Korea and Taiwan. They were better prepared in general with their systems and emergency planning, reacted quickly and took the approach the WHO recommends (high levels of testing).

Even if the UK couldn't manage that (despite the longer planning time), it could work more strategically with the data available. South Korea in particular, with its massive testing programme, was able to highlight which groups of people become infected more and which groups of people have worse outcomes.

A sensible and strategic approach would be to prioritise minimising serious illness. So throwing all resources at protecting the groups who are more likely to become very unwell, need speciality care and have a higher chance of dying. It would still be disruptive and require a whole society approach, but wouldn't necessarily result in wholesale shutdown. Done properly, it should save lives, save resources and result in a quicker and more complete end to the crisis.

Lockdown is needed though. It might not be quite so needed, if the NHS hadn't been starved of needed funding for 10 years+. But we have what we have..really.

Lockdown is not really for individuals, its so the NHS can deal with the influx of new patients and dn't end up having to turn people away to die at home, basically..

We’ve left it too late to do what Taiwan and South Korea are doing. If the lockdown helps us to get a handle on it then we might be able to shift into a strategy similar to theirs. This lockdown might not have been necessary at all if we’d followed their example in the first place.

I don't know..I am in two minds about it but can see why its needed for the NHS and thats taking priority to me at the minute. South Koreas approach is MUCH better though, no denying it really.

In terms of the economy, of course growth will be less than in the past for a few years and taxes will be higher. But our economy is not going to collapse. Once people are able to work and socialise again spending in the leisure industry will soar as people do what they have not been able to do during lock down. Tourism abroad may take a but longer to recover, but domestic tourism will boom as will spending coming from people visiting family and friends they have not been able to visit.

Yes unemployment will be higher, but this will recover. Our main industry is the service industry and there are enough people who will have money to help this boost. New restaurants and bars will open up.

Some individuals may have a very tough time after all this, but the economy will recover. Covoid 19 is a real crisis that is affecting us all, but it is not the zombie apocalypse. Our country has been through worse and recovered. But there is a lot of scaremongering about.

@alloutoffucks How would you have imposed lockdown when we barely had any deaths?

Quote from Bill Gates, who warned in 2015 that the world was seriously unprepared for a global pandemic:
“It’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner, we want you to keep spending because there’s some politician that thinks GDP growth is what counts.”

If residents in care homes are being found dead and abandoned in Italy and Spain, and you can see mass graves being dug in Iran from space, then what exactly are those saying we should have waited longer to lock down proposing and what do they think it would look like in a few weeks, given the fact the world was caught with its pants down???

Another that thinks it was left too late. I hope that someone calculates the toll of the government’s inaction when all is said and done.

Makeitgoaway Sun 29-Mar-20 10:31:04
There are riots in Wuhan (a place where people are used to being kept in line an literally terrified of the authorities) now and social unrest in Italy.

Ah indeed, I see you are an expert because you are a fan of sensationalist reporting in the red tops.

@jasjas1973 sadly there has been zero shielding of those at most risk.

And just not prepared for.

I lead schools working for an LA- we didn't know about school closure until BJ announced it in the press conference.
The key worker information was very ill judged with no clarity; noone asked beforehand if schools could cope, or how this would work.

GrouchoMrx in read about the riots in The Times actually, I wouldn't know how the tabloids are reporting them However, I have never claimed to be any sort of expert in any of this, just enjoying a discussion and hoping to understand better.

We already know that people who died of another cause, but tested positive for covoid 19, are not recorded as covoid 19 deaths. These are people who would not have died now.

The economy will for sure bounce back once it's over. I'm not being naive - I know that this is seriously affecting the economy in the short term and people are really struggling but people will be desperate to go out and spend once it's over. Hopefully it will be whilst we still have some summer left as this will make people even more inclined to go out and spend and socialise.

South Koreas approach is better but they are also enforcing a law that grants the government wide authority to access data: CCTV footage, GPS tracking data from phones and cars, credit card transactions, immigration entry information, and other personal details of people confirmed to have an infectious disease.

I don’t think all this doom and gloom scaremongering does anyone any good.

There was none of this when we had the swine flu outbreak and we got through that within a few months. There was also a vaccine available within a few months, and I don’t know why people on here are saying that there wasn’t. There was - they gave it to children, and it caused quite a bit of controversy because it caused narcolepsy in some cases. I own a nursery and remember it being given to all the kids there at the time.

The vaccine had side effects in a few cases, but it wiped out the illness - just as this will.

@JesmondDene Agreed. Just like when Boris said get 2 weeks of food in in case you need to self isolate, no one in government seemed to have realised that would cause an issue at supermarkets.

@alloutoffucks How would you have imposed lockdown when we barely had any deaths?

In the same way they have done in Ireland or New Zealand perhaps?

Iirc swine flu vaccine was far quicker than this will be?

Makeitgoaway - are you seriously suggesting rioting could have been prevented by Italy locking down even later on than it did? That people would happily have trotted off into isolation with fewer mental health problems if they had seen nice, reassuring piles of corpses in makeshift morgues, first?

@Makeitgoaway I fully agree with you. I think that they were wanting to lockdown slower. And that public opinion on the school thing forced them to close a week early than they would have done. And yes I agree with you that this virus is going to spread through the population and we need 65% of people to be immune for it to the not be able to circulate. So it is a delicate balance of letting it spread but not too fast as to overwhelm the health system. And then yes we need to shield those who are vulnerable in the meantime. And yes the harder we lockdown and flatten the curve the longer this is going to last.

South Korea's approach basically requires a level of state surveillance that ( pre c0vid) would not have been contemplated in this country where law prevents the state from monitoring every place you go and identifying everyone you have contact with, no opt out,

Short term loss of freedom or longer term loss of freedoms ?

@EYProvider I think because swine flu affected young people and children more, the government knew it could not just leave them to die.
And yes vaccines do not take years for a different flu, that is just not true.