Lockdown over sooner than we think - positive outlooks

[oldbeforem]

I keep reading threads about this lasting 6 - 18 months.

I have had an operation cancelled with no date for it to be rebooked.

I need to think positively and believe that this will be over sooner than we think!

Anyone agree?

It sort of depends on how well the next 2 weeks go really, I think. After Easter I’d imagine we goes back to the stage we had before.Any longer and the economy will be very difficult to pick up easily.

People will be used to distancing themselves and hand washing and naturally be more careful. Better than we were two weeks ago anyway.

Hopefully the anti body test will be around within a month or so. That will help. I’m sure more people than think have had it already.

I think things will start slowly reopening from June. Hopwfully

People will be used to distancing themselves and hand washing and naturally be more careful. Better than we were two weeks ago anyway.

I think even when we are back to normal it will be a while before we'll trust ourselves to stand too close to anyone!

Again WE ARE NOT IN LOCKDOWN TO PROTECT THE VULNERABLE. We are doing it to protect the NHS. And therefore everyone that uses it. If it becomes overwhelmed with covid 19 patients it won't be able to deal with routine stuff, as well as cancer, and other serious illnesses.

This isn't about weighing up the deaths from covid 19 to the economy. It's about balancing the needs of the NHS and how many might die if it can't cope.

FWIW the government are now predicting that the peak will be 12th April rather than mid May as it was previously suggested. That means we are only at the top of the hill though.

It doesn't count if you climb Everest, if you don't make it back down again.

That means we do have a long haul to go however you view it.

Also, with the antibody test- people will only really be able to return to work if the schools open. A d the schools can't open until they have enough staff. Many schools employ staff in the High Risk category, what about teachers that test negative to antibodies. Some schools might be fully staffed and others not.

I think current lockdown will be 12 weeks total, so another 11 weeks.

This last week has felt like a decade.

"The antibodies test should make a big difference, if it's valid and reliable."

Has there been any more news about this this weekend? Would have been a good question for the press conference today. It seems from the lack of any announcement that it is not quite ready yet. Have the 350k tests arrived yet - are they being quality control checked?

Amazing how perfect can watch and listen to the same words but report to have heard something different. She did not say 6 months of lockdown. Clean your ears out!
Was just going to post the exact same thing .

So many people are just loving the drama of all this. They are literally relishing it.
Could not agree more .

Restrictions may not be the same for the entire 6 months. Where I live in China it varied: takeaways closed then open then closed, office workers back to work, takeaways open again, some restaurants open and now schools starting to go back grade by grade,
This is what I imagine will happen here .
Obviously what was said today was that this situation will go on for 6 months but it will be likely to be staggered lockdown.
I think a lot of people especially on here want to assume that we won't be able to leave the house for 6 months .
Lockdown is so that it will stagger how many catch the virus as even if we all stay home till September the virus will still be around . It will be naive to think if we lockdown for 2-3 months then all go back to normal .
I think a lot of people like to think the worst case scenario and if you disagree you are stupid.
Obviously the government has a situation that many will die and the nhs will not be able to cope and the fact that many will get ill will effect the economy. The solution is to lockdown and stagger some sort of normality eventually ie like the other post said some people will go back to work they may be a surge again and so on . This will be normal for 6 months longer maybe . I suspect even that until a vaccine is ready this situation will go on longer it won't just go away .

I am intrigued at people who think it will go on for six months or more do you think the wage promise will last that long? I cannot get my head around how we can afford to do this as we are for six months to be honest! And I do not think you can compare to China given it’s communist and we are capitalist!

In honestly think they will have to find a reason to at least partially lift after three month just to avoid economic destruction!

Remember we all love the nhs at the moment but it is not getting very much tax income while large parts of the country are not working. Our public services will suffer if we don’t get income tax revenues moving it’s not just about “money” whatever some of those on Mumsnet think!

but I don’t believe it is fair to ask everyone else to give up all their liberties and pleasures for a long period to extend the lives of people who will in all likelihood die in the next year anyway of other causes.

Wow - where were you when empathy was being handed out? You do realise that the people at most risk are not all elderly? People with diabetes or even COPD could have many good years ahead of them rather than expectations of dying in the next year. What about people with compromised immune systems? Please think before you make such ridiculous statements.

I suspect the current lockdown will end on 14th. Then another lockdown will occur a few weeks after that. This will mean cases occur in the population at intervals rather than all at once. These cycles will repeat until enough of the population have had it that it doesn't spread easily. Then the vulnerable can come out of isolation. This may take months.

This is never about protecting anyone from catching it. It's seen as inevitable that most will. It's about feeding cases through but by bit so as not to overwhelm the NHS.

I think 8-12 weeks of this (or stricter) then slowly lifting restrictions with the possibility of going back to this if we see a further spike in cases.

What happens to the 'second wave' though will depend on so many things - in particular whether any combination of anti virals has been come up with that can alleviate symptoms. Also worth bearing in mind that if there is a let up in the summer, it gives the government time to buy more ventilators, train more staff, get more PPE, more testing equipment and put in place the 'contract tracing measures that other countries used, before any second wave in the autumn.

So we need not assume that the second wave will be anything like the first.

I think everyone has their own way of coping with this psychologically - for some it's helpful to resign themselves now to 6 months (or 18!), others need to feel optimism that things will change soon, others are 'one day at a time'. No right or wrong - we all have our own ways of thinking about things.

I agree @Qasd
Like someone else said the next 2 weeks are crucial, hopefully it will decrease a lot .
We can all say I think 12 weeks I think 6 months who knows .
I believe the government are taking it day by day week by week but are preparing for the worst . A lot of people will not have jobs in a month never mind 6 months .

I can't be the only one alarmed by the country's descent into a place with onerous powers given to the police, and their apparent enthusiasm for enacting them. Similarly the stasi curtain twitchers so apparent on social media, mumsnet included

This worries me too.

Tbh where only isolating to stop us all getting it at once and needing the nhs. If we carry on getting it in bits it will end up going into the winter again when nhs is busy. I think keep old folk and vulnerable at home kids back to school and start opening things again in may time. As they predict we are all going to get it anyways just prolonging it so nhs isnt overwhelmed

I don’t believe it’ll go on anywhere near as long as people are predicting.

It may well be what we need - but it’s just not workable. The economy and countless businesses and families will be destroyed by it. People won’t tolerate it. Everyone will eventually weigh up their own odds of either not getting it or beating it if they do and they’ll act accordingly.

'contact tracing'. (Obviously the govt will also have time to do any contract tracing that is necessary as well! But that may not be so urgent)

I genuinely don't understand people who come on threads like this and say exactly the opposite of what a clearly anxious OP has asked for. Does it make you feel powerful or something?

Happened to me when I broke my ankle 6 weeks ago and asked for positive stories as I was feeling very low and anxious. It wasn't long before someone came along to tell me that their broken ankle led to two years of hell and still was permanently damaged.

OP, I think we can take a lot of hope from Wuhan, and from the fact the whole world's scientists are working on this now.

Most people will soon understand that lockdown doesn’t get rid of this virus, it merely slows down the spread so we don’t get it all at once. Lockdown prolongs it, keeps it with us longer.

I’m so glad there are so many sensible people popping up on this thread. We are not going to be on lockdown for 6 months. As others have said, I reckon it will be 12 weeks more or less like this and yes, that’s shit, but after that they’ll hopefully have flattened the curve sufficiently that we’ll be able to start getting back to some degree of normal, with restrictions loosening as time goes on but then periodically being heightened if necessary but for much shorter periods and much less affect on the population as a whole.

When that Imperial College report came out almost a fortnight ago, a friend posted it on Facebook with a summary of the content. He said we’d be locked down for 18 months, everything closed and non key workers would be conscripted army-style to work in the NHS. This is a friend who is generally very intelligent so I read this and had an enormous panic attack. Then I decided to look at the report myself. It said nothing like that - 18 months was the worst case figure for finding a vaccine. Lockdown would be expected to last 8-12 weeks and then loosening of measures with periods of some being reintroduced here and there for shorter durations. With the aim of flattening the curve but also getting the country back to normal.

Some people just thrive on drama and doom. I’ve muted so many on Facebook now. A friend who is in perfect health and early 40s said to me yesterday ‘if I survive this...’

I mean fuck off.

We can’t do this longer than 3 weeks. Thousands and thousands of jobs have already been lost and it’s only been a week!

The doctors would prefer to keep us locked up for months on end. There has to be some sort of balance. I am hoping the economists are fully conversing with the epidemiologists.

There won’t be an NHS once we enter into a depression.

It will definitely be longer than 3 weeks.