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?

A lot of people won’t be happy until we’re all locked in our wardrobes, rocking and wailing.

😂 Although some will complain we are doing lockdown too noisily then

What's that book called again, 1987 was it? I like that book. I like the lockdown.
I in no way think the statistics have been misinterpreted by the media.

Doofus on the flip side you get the idiots doing whatever that bring in more restrictions

I think it’s an unfair representation of people in support of lockdown to say that they are enjoying it. I doubt many people enjoy it at all. This is a time of worry and fear and restrictions for us all. A lot of people are very eager for everyone to comply with lockdown because we need it to work to save a lot of lives. It’s frightening to think of the consequences otherwise.

Part of me wonders whether we should have carried on as normal ie schools open, no restrictions, but vulnerable isolating.
I fear the long term cost of our actions maybe be considerably more than accepting the short term consequences.

No, Britain waited far too long - which is why your infection and death rate is soaring.
I feel much safer in New Zealand.

@PertEllaTitsahoy I agree with you and morgues, 400,000 say in one month is a huge number. I’m not saying lockdown shouldn’t happen but people on this thread are making numbers up which is unhelpful and scaremongering.

The good thing is that in a few weeks/months, we'll know. Some countries locked down later, some earlier. Most of South America locked down at the same time as the UK, despite being 2-3 weeks behind in terms of numbers of cases/spread. So in a couple of months' time we can compare figures.

I suggested that very early on MH1111. There were a handful if posters who thought it was a decent plan but on the whole there was outrage, not because people thought it wouldn't work but because it was unfair to "lock up" some people and not others. And look where we are now.

OP if you think herd immunity is still the plan, you are way behind the curve. I mean maybe secretly that is still Cummings plan? But lots of scientists have said it is a terrible idea. Because -

• Even in the governments own figures, herd immunity would have meant half a million additional deaths.
• The government calculated herd immunity on the basis of 70% of young and healthy people getting it. We do not have that many healthy and young people in our population.
• Herd immunity ignores that covoid 19 mutates.
• Herd immunity ignores that some people who survive will be left with long term lung damage. We have no idea how many.
• Herd immunity assumes we can treat the number of people who are ill and need treatment. We can't.

@LunaTheCat The NZ response looks brilliant. I agree you are much safer there.

I know they're not talking about it any more but it must still be the plan, otherwise how to we come out of this? We can't lock down to the extent that there is no more virus without closing the hospitals and all other essential services.

If we don't have immunity (we would likely have some to a mutated virus) we're back at square one when we go back to normal.

@alloutoffucks

Very well said.

(and I appreciate the sentiment of your username, as I'm starting to feel like that too....especially with the people who seem to be a special kind of stupid)

OFFS No!
There are teams of experienced scientists and epidemiologists working on this stuff, you know ....EXPERTS!

The early modelling suggested that herd immunity was the long term way to minimise deaths (it does avoid the winter surge that's coming). As more and more data came in they realised the short term deaths would be huge, so switched to the current plan.

The current plan still means there will be a huge winter surge, so we're relying on very fast drug development.

Overall no one will know which strategy was the correct one for a couple of years.

Nope, had they done it in time we wouldn't be in this mess now.
BJ may have been influenced by others to lockdown, the one's who actually have some intelligence.

@alloutoffucks I can’t take you seriously when you make numbers up just to scare people

Didn’t the policy change when they saw figures showing it was moving much faster then they expected?

I read somewhere that there wasn’t consensus at the meetings...so I think they were being given a wide range of advice and chose what fit this political ideology. Which I’m sure labour would have done too..

If we dont have herd immunity, do we have to close our borders forever? As in China, foreigners are taking it back in and it's starting to spread among the population again.

@Gin96

Borders won't close forever, but I would expect international travel restrictions until vaccination or a very effect treatment become available

I think he was a week too late.

Sorry, I should say travellers, not foreigners

Isolating the vulnerable and everyone else carrying on would not have worked. Not unless you also totally isolated all of the medics, care home workers, delivery drivers etc that would be interacting with them. Once the virus was circulating in the community it would make its way into care homes, hospitals and the homes of vulnerable people. The only way to really protect the millions of vulnerable people is to slow the spread of the virus. This is why nowhere else has seriously considered the strategy of trying to isolate them whilst letting the virus run rampant in the wider community. It just isn’t possible to have a huge outbreak in the wider community and it not reach the vulnerable.

Funny how the UK's modelling was different from what WHO and every other government is doing then?

And that herd immunity is based on simple flaws that I can see. So that 70% of healthy young people will get it when we do not have that amount of healthy and young people. And accepting that half a million people will die.

So we will go through waves of lockdown until a vaccine?